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BETTY BARKER 

A Little Girl with a Big Heart 







“They ate their breakfast with bright-eyed, furry and feathery 
CREATURES WATCHING FROM THE GREEN TREES AND BUSHES.” — 

Page 27. 


BETTY BARKER 


A LITTLE GIRL WITH 
A BIG HEART 


By 

JANET THOMAS VAN OSDEL 

w 


Illustrated by 

ANTOINETTE INGLIS 


/ 



BOSTON 

LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO. 


Published, August, 1921 


Copyright, 1921, 

By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. 

All Rights Reserved 

Betty Barker 


WorwooO press 

BERWICK & SMITH CO. 
Norwood, Mass. 

U. S. A. 


SEP -8 ib2i 


/ 



n/ 


§)CI. A622690 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 



PAGE 

I. 

Betty's Notions . 



9 

II. 

Asking Questions 



. 16 

III. 

Queer Needles . 



. 25 

IV. 

Who Was Homesick ? . 



• 33 

V. 

The Proud Cake . 



. 42 

VI. 

Horses and Horses 



. 50 

VII. 

Betty Misses Her Lesson 



00 

VIII. 

'Fraidy Cat ! 



. 63 

IX. 

Betty Finds a Pet 



. 70 

X. 

The Pink-Eyed Cooky Boy 



. 81 

XI. 

Ada’s Turn . 



. 91 

XII. 

A “ Nimpossible ” Child 



. IOO 

XIII. 

Betty and Ada Go Out to Lunch 

. 108 

XIV. 

Ada Finds a New Home 



. 118 

XV. 

Betty Makes a Visit . 



. 127 

XVI. 

A Pairy Grants Three Wishes 


• 134 


6 



ILLUSTRATIONS 


They ate their breakfast with bright-eyed furry 
and feathery creatures watching from the 
green trees and bushes (Page 27) . Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

“ Why, Aunt Martha, I'm not sleeping ! ” . . 46 

“You can’t move even the littlest bit, can you, 

dearie ?” 72 

Together she and Ada dragged in the tree . . 98 

The Sparkling Lady drew Betty to her . . .106 

“Fairy, fairy, I wish for this pony ! ” . . .140 


7 



Betty Barker 

A Little Girl With a Big Heart 

CHAPTER I 
BETTY’S NOTIONS 

44 T OW sit down and eat your oatmeal,” 
JL said Aunt Martha to Betty one 
morning when she had charge of the 
house because Betty’s mother was at the hos- 
pital. 44 Eat it whether you like it or not! 
You surely have notions! ” 

Betty did not like oatmeal, but she ate it 
now because her mother had told her she was 
to mind Aunt Martha. While she was eating 
it she wondered what notions had to do with it. 

44 1 want to wear my plaid dress to school 
to-day, Aunt Martha,” said Betty when she 

had finished her breakfast. 44 It’s the fruit 

9 


10 BETTY BARKER 

shower for teacher and ’most everybody wears 
best dresses for showers! ” 

“ That’s the first I ever heard of folks dress- 
ing up for showers ! You just put on your old 
serge dress. A fruit shower or any other kind 
of a shower is exactly the reason for wearing 
the oldest clothes you’ve got. What if some 
of the fruit stains got on your plaid silk and 
you had to show them to your mother when she 
got home? You’ve got to get rid of your no- 
tions.” 

“ What’s notions? ” asked Betty. 

“ Something folks oughtn’t to have and the 
quicker they get rid of them the better,” re- 
plied Aunt Martha. “ Now get your apples 
from the cellar or you’ll be late for school.” 

“ Mother never said I had ’em, and Aunt 
Martha won’t tell a child a single thing!” 
whispered Betty to herself, as she hung over 
the edge of the apple-barrel, trying to find the 


BETTY’S NOTIONS 


11 


biggest and reddest apples. “ Maybe I got 
’em since she went to the hospital. Maybe 
they’re like measles and they’re catching and I 
oughtn’t go to school to-day. And I want to 
go on ’count of the shower to Miss Blake even 
if I do have to wear this old red dress! ” 

“Aunt Martha, ought I go to school if I’ve 
got notions? ” she called on her way past the 
kitchen door. 

“ Ought she to go to school if she’s got no- 
tions! ” remarked Aunt Martha looking up at 
the ceiling. “ What possesses the child? You 
run along as fast as ever you can, Betty 
Barker, or you’ll be late again ! ” 

“ I’m surely glad her mother’s coming back 
so soon,” said Aunt Martha to herself as she 
watched Betty in her red serge and red stock- 
ings skipping down the path. “ I’m willing 
enough to do the work, but Betty’s questions 
are too much for me! ” 


12 


BETTY BARKER 


“ I’ve got notions,” Betty told her friend 
Ada at recess. 

“ What’s them? ” asked Ada. 

Betty shook her head. 

“ I don’t know ’xactly, but Aunt Martha 
says I shouldn’t have ’em and I got to get rid 
of ’em. That’s what the doctor said about my 
tonsils, and then he cut them out.” 

Tears of sympathy for herself filled Betty’s 
brown eyes. Then she added honestly, “ But 
it didn’t hurt hardly a speck.” 

“ Does these hurt? ” asked Ada. 

“ I don’t know where they are, so I can’t 
tell,” replied Betty. “ But I don’t think it 
will matter if you play with me. Tonsils 
didn’t catch, and maybe notions are more like 
tonsils than measles, ’cause you got to get rid 
of notions, too.” 

On the way home from school Betty stopped 
in at her grandfather’s carpenter shop. She 


BETTY’S NOTIONS 


13 


picked up the long, clean shavings lying about 
and hung them over her shoulder, pretending 
she had long golden curls instead of straight 
black hair. 

In a corner of the shop was a pile of boxes 
on which were printed big black letters — the 
kind that Betty found it easy to read. She 
named one after the other and her grandfather 
told her the word they made. Then she came 
to two words she knew. 

“ B-o-x, box! ” she spelled. “ I knew that 
word my own self, Grandpa! ” 

“ You’ll soon know as much as your grand- 
dad ! ” he cried. 

“ O-f, of! ” sang out Betty. 

“ My, O my! ” said grandfather. 

“ N-o-t-i-o-n-s! What does that spell. 
Grandpa? ” 

“ Notions,” answered Grandpa. 

“Notions! " cried Betty. “ Ought you to 


u 


BETTY BARKER 


have ’em, Grandpa? Aunt Martha says folks 
shouldn’t have ’em, and if they have they must 
get rid of ’em quick as they can.” 

“ Shouldn’t have what? ” asked Grandpa, 
putting down his plane to catch Betty up in his 
arms. 

“ Notions. What is notions, Grandpa, and 
why are they so bad? ” 

“ We’ll take a look at these notions right 
now, and let’s hope they’re not bad because 
they have to be used to-morrow,” said Grandpa. 

Betty held her breath while the box was be- 
ing pried open, but when the cover came off all 
she saw was some knobs and cord and hooks. 

“ You see, honey, it’s just a lot of odds and 
ends to be used about the new house I’m put- 
ting up,” explained Grandpa. “ To save list- 
ing and sending a lot of little things separately, 
they bunch them together and mark the box, 
4 Notions.’ In a store you’d find needles, pins, 


BETTY’S NOTIONS 


15 


thread, and such things all bunched together 
on a counter they call the ‘ notion ’ counter.” 

Betty looked puzzled. 

“ But I haven’t needles or pins or knobs, and 
Aunt Martha says I’ve got notions and I’ve 
got to get rid of ’em.” 

Grandfather laughed. 

“ What Aunt Martha meant was that you 
have some ideas of your own that she can’t un- 
derstand. If she could understand them and 
they agreed with her way of thinking she’d 
probably call them ideas instead of notions. 
Now let’s go up to the house. I have an idea 
that maybe there’s somebody there you’d like 
to see!” 

“ Oh, is it Mother? ” whispered Betty, too 
happy to talk out loud. 

Grandpa nodded and they started for the 
house. 


CHAPTER II 
ASKING QUESTIONS 

B ETTY had only one little peep at hei 
mother and a long, long kiss. Then 
she had to go out of the room because 
her mother was still very weak. It would be 
days before she could see Betty for more than 
a few minutes at a time and those minutes had 
to be such quiet ones! 

To make things more lonesome, Grandpa 
had gone away for a couple of weeks. 

Betty sat on the back steps wishing that her 
mother would hurry and get all well and that 
Grandpa would come home and never go away 
again. She wanted somebody around who 
would tell her everything she wished to know, 
Mother and Grandpa did that. Aunts were 

different. She had asked Aunt Martha only 
16 


ASKING QUESTIONS 17 

a few questions and then Aunt Martha had 
said, “ Betty Barker, if you ask one more 
question, first thing you know you’ll turn into 
a Question-Mark Girl! ” 

“ What’s a Question-Mark Girl? ” asked 
Betty. 

To show Betty Aunt Martha drew a Ques- 
tion-Mark Girl just like this: 



“ Is the dot ? ” began Betty. 

“ S-sh! ” said Aunt Martha. “ Now you go 
outdoors and don’t ask another question, no 


18 BETTY BARKER 

matter what comes up. A girl as big as you 
should find out things for herself.’’ 

All Betty had been going to ask was whether 
the dot was a foot, and would she have only one 
foot if she did turn into a Question-Mark Girl, 
and couldn’t she ever run or jump again if she 
did have only one foot? 

Very well! 

She’d never ask Aunt Martha another ques- 
tion! 

Maybe she’d never ask anybody another 
question as long as she lived! 

“ Want to sell that carpet? ” 

Betty jumped with surprise, but it was only 
the ragged ragman. 

“ What carpet? ” asked Betty, looking at his 
poor bony brown horse and wishing she dared 
go into the kitchen and get some sugar to give 
him. Then she remembered and glanced down 
at her feet. There were still two of them. 


ASKING QUESTIONS 19 

“ The one you’re leaning up against,” re- 
plied the man, taking off an old felt hat and 
wiping his forehead with a red handkerchief. 

Betty turned around and saw a big roll of 
carpet on the steps behind her. 

“ Maybe that there’s for me,” said the rag- 
man. “ Sometimes your ma does set out rags 
so’s I kin pick ’em up when I come along.” 

“ Mother’s too sick to set things out,” re- 
plied Betty. “ Maybe Aunt Martha did. I’ll 
ask her.” 

Betty took three hops toward the kitchen 
door and then stopped short. 

She would not ask Aunt Martha! 

She’d show her that she didn’t have to ask 
anybody questions and perhaps she could make 
a lot of money besides. 

She turned back and said to the man, “ You 
can have the carpet for a nickel.” 

The ragman did not say that was too much, 


20 


BETTY BARKER 


as Betty was afraid he might. He gave her 
a nickel, rolled the carpet down to his old 
wagon and drove the bony horse off in a 
hurry. 

Betty wanted to ask Aunt Martha whether 
she might go to town to spend the money, but 
since she wasn’t asking questions she went 
without permission. She bought a penny’s 
worth of pink peppermints for Grandpa and a 
penny chocolate for her mother. Then she 
bought three all-day suckers for herself. If 
Aunt Martha hadn’t been so particular about 
children’s asking questions she might have 
bought her a candy banana. 

The next week Betty’s mother came down- 
stairs. 

Betty danced about happily. There were 
so many things she wanted to know. She es- 
pecially wanted to know why Pearly, the col- 
ored man and her good friend, had stopped 


ASKING QUESTIONS 21 

coming in each day to do some of the chores for 
Aunt Martha. 

“ Where is ? ” began Betty, when her 

mother, in a pale blue wrapper with her hair in 
two long golden braids, was seated in the big 
chair with pillows all around her. 

Then Betty remembered the Question-Mark 
Girl and said instead, “ I haven’t seen Pearly 
here this whole week. Mother.” 

“Aunt Martha sent him away,” said Mrs. 
Barker, stroking the little girl’s dark hair with 
her thin white hand. “ She says he isn’t hon- 
est.” 

“ What makes Pearly is honest. 

Mother! He’s honester than anybody I 
know! ” 

“ I’ve thought he was, too, Betty,” agreed 
her mother, smiling. “ But the carpet is gone 
— my best up-stairs carpet! And Pearly did 
ask Aunt Martha how much a carpet would 


22 


BETTY BARKER 


cost, and he took this one up for her. And he 
is going to be married as soon as he can furnish 
a house.” 

“ Maybe Pearly didn’t take the carpet,” said 
Betty in a small voice, wriggling her red-stock- 
inged legs about uncomfortably. 

“ That’s what I hope,” answered her mother. 

“ And he didn’t, Mother! Truly he didn’t! ” 

Mrs. Barker looked keenly at her little 
daughter. 

Betty decided that she must risk everything 
for Pearly’s sake and ask one question. If she 
did change to a Question-Mark Girl on ac- 
count of that — well, she’d just have to stand it ! 

So she asked, “ If you cross-your-heart knew 
that Pearly didn’t take that carpet could he 
come back here to work and get married? No- 
body would marry him if he stole carpets, 
would they, Mother? ” 

“ Indeed he could come back! ” replied her 


ASKING QUESTIONS 23 

mother. “ Pearly is too good a worker for 
anybody to give him up without good reason.’* 

“ Well, then he didn’t, Mother! I did! I 
didn’t ’xactly take it, neither, but I let the rag- 
man take it and he gave me a whole nickel for 
it. You could have it now only I spent it. 
And I got pink peppermints to give Grandpa 
when he came home and a chocolate for you 
when you got well, but that got squashy and I 
had to eat it. Aunt Martha said if I asked her 
a single more question I’d turn into a Ques- 
tion-Mark Girl, and so I didn’t ask about the 
carpet. I thought things for myself.” 

“A Question-Mark Girl! What are you 
talking about? ” 

“ This is her picture,” said Betty, and pulled 
from her pocket a dirty piece of paper on which 
was Aunt Martha’s Question-Mark Girl. 

Mrs. Barker studied it with a frown, then 
she crumpled up the paper and tossed it aside. 


24 


BETTY BARKER 


“ It’s quite time I was getting back to my 
Betty girl/’ she said. “ There must be a thou- 
sand things she wants to know if she hasn’t 
asked a question for more than a week. 
There’s never any danger in asking Mother 
questions, darling. She understands that you 
must ask them if you are to grow into a wise 
woman. And the question you did not ask 
cost Mother twenty dollars.” 

“ Oh, Mother! ” cried Betty, the tears filling 
her eyes. 

“ But we’ll forget about that,” whispered 
Mother. “ Now how would you like to go 
over to Pearly’s house and tell him to come 
back to work to-morrow? And you may tell 
him that he’ll be paid for last week the same as 
though he’d been here.” 


CHAPTER III 

QUEER NEEDLES 

M RS. BARKER was still far from 
strong when Betty’s school closed for 
the summer vacation, so Dr. Hen- 
derson said that she should take Betty and get 
away from everything for a while. 

“ That means that you and Betty and 
Grandpa will go away up in the wilds to our 
little lodge,” said Mr. Barker. “ That’s 
where you’ll get away from everything. The 
pines and the hills will finish your cure. 
Martha can take care of me all right.” 

So Betty and her mother and Grandpa rode 
on the train as far as it would take them. 
Then they got out of the train and into a 

wagon that was waiting for them, and again 
25 


26 


BETTY BARKER 


they rode for miles and miles. Just when 
Betty was about to ask Grandpa whether her 
bones were broken because they hurt her so 
from riding so long over the rough roads, he 
cried, “ Here we are at last! ” 

“Are we here? I don’t see any wilds or 
lodge! ” said Betty. 

“ We’ve been in the wilds for hours, dear 
heart,” explained Grandpa. “ That is what 
we call the woods and the hills and everything 
outdoors here because it is so wild and so far 
away from people. And the lodge is the little 
log hut right over there. I built it years ago 
when your mother wasn’t as old as you are 
now, Betty.” 

That night they slept in queer beds. To 
Betty they seemed nothing butwooden benches 
nailed up against the wall and filled with 
sweet-smelling hay. There was only a curtain 
of skin to separate the two rooms of the lodge. 


QUEER NEEDLES 27 

In the morning Grandfather built a fire out- 
doors and fried bacon and boiled coffee over it. 
They ate their breakfast with bright-eyed 
furry and feathery creatures watching from 
the green trees and bushes sparkling with dew 
in the morning sunshine. There was the sing- 
ing and the calling of birds all about them. 

“ This is peace,” said Mrs. Barker with a 
happy sigh. And it made Betty happy to see 
her mother happy. 

“ The smell of the pines put me to sleep and 
kept me asleep,” Mrs. Barker went on. “ I 
don’t know when I’ve slept as I did last night. 
And I’m so hungry! Mayn’t I have another 
slice of bacon and an egg, Father? ” 

After breakfast, when the dew had dried, 
Betty began to run about until she caught her 
foot in the tangled grass and fell. Her stock- 
ing was torn and her knee skinned so that it 
bled. 


28 BETTY BARKER 

It was not until Mrs. Barker went to get 
Betty a fresh pair of stockings to take the 
place of her torn ones that she discovered she 
had not put any in the trunk. 

“ I suppose the only thing we can do about 
it is to mend these torn ones,” she said. 

But when she took out her bag to find a 
needle and some cotton, there were no needles I 

“Why, Betty, I told you to bring the needle- 
case just as I was finishing packing! How 
could you be so careless? ” 

Betty hung her head. She had been on her 
way to say good-bye to Ada when her mother 
had spoken to her, and instead of obeying at 
once she had gone on to Ada’s. By the time 
she came back she had forgotten about the 
needles. 

“ We’re in a terrible predicament,” contin- 
ued Mrs. Barker, speaking to Grandpa. “ It 
will be two weeks at the earliest before we can 


QUEER NEEDLES 29 

get any supplies up here. And the Smith- 
Calvins are to stop here on their northern trip. 
They’re the only folks we’ll see all the time 
we’re here and to have things wrong then! If 
it were anybody but Sibyl Smith-Calvin to see 
my child in such a plight I wouldn’t mind! ” 

“ My dear daughter, wouldn’t it be better 
for Sibyl to see Betty in rags than for you to 
make yourself sick over it? Why, I’ve seen 
Sibyl with worse than torn stockings on when 
you two youngsters played together about my 
shop! Now, I want you to lie down here 
under these pines and forget all about every 
trouble under the sun. Betty and I’ll wander 
about a little , but not far enough away so as to 
be out of hearing of your bell if you should 
ring.” 

If it wasn’t for the mosquitoes I’d cut them 
off and make socks of them,” went on Mrs. 
Barker. “ That would be better than holes. 


30 BETTY BARKER 

but I don’t dare do it. She’s badly enough 
bitten as it is.” 

“ I wouldn’t mind a speck being more bitten, 
Mother, if you’d like that,” said Betty. 

“ Daughter, dear, lie down as I tell you,” 
urged Grandfather. “ In another hour, after 
you’ve had a good nap, this annoyance will be 
shrunk down to its proper proportions. 
There’s always a way out of everything.” 

Betty was not happy as she trotted along be- 
side Grandpa, clinging tightly to his hand. 
She had been careless and now her mother was 
worrying and that would make her ill. Grand- 
father was quiet and thoughtful, too. 

They picked their way through the under- 
brush and long grass until they came to an 
opening in the woods through which they saw a 
little blue lake sparkling in the sunshine. On 
the hills beyond the lake they saw a deer graz- 
ing. 


QUEER NEEDLES 


31 


“ Oh, Grandpa, look! ” cried Betty, forget- 
ting to be sorry and jumping up and down in 
delight. 

“ Ouch!” she cried, suddenly stopping her 
jumping. 

“ What is it, sweetheart? ” asked Grandpa. 

“ Something’s sticking my foot! Oh! 
Ouch! ” 

Grandpa picked Betty up in alarm. 

As he did so he heard a soft rustle in the 
underbrush. He parted it and looked into it. 
There he saw a queer little fellow covered with 
long hairs and quills trying to steal quietly 
away. 

“ That’s the fellow that pricked you, honey !” 
exclaimed Grandpa. “ When you jumped up 
and down you struck him with your foot and 
he put out his quills. And if those quills aren’t 
in your shoe right now! Does your foot hurt, 
Betty?” 


32 


BETTY BARKER 


“ Not much any more,” answered Betty. 
“ Look, Grandpa, aren’t his feathers like darn- 
ing-needles? ” 

“They are, Betty!” cried Grandpa. 
“ These are as sharp as a needle and as smooth. 
I’ll punch an eye through the thick end and 
there we have the darning-needle your mother’s 
been wishing for! ” 

“ Wasn’t he good to give me two of his 
feathers for darning-needles? ” asked Betty. 

“ What he really was doing, Betty, was try- 
ing to protect himself,” explained Grandpa. 
“ When Mr. Porcupine thinks he is in danger 
he shoots out his quills so as to hurt and 
frighten away whatever is threatening him.” 

“Anyhow, Mrs. Smith-Calvin won’t see me 
in such a plight now. What is ‘such a plight,’ 
Grandpa? ” 


CHAPTER IV 

WHO WAS HOMESICK? 

A T last the pines and the hills, the blue 
sky and the long days and nights of 
rest did their work for Betty’s mother. 
The roses came back to her white face, her blue 
eyes began to sparkle and day by day she be- 
came stronger. Then they decided to go 
home. 

They had been there only a week when Betty 
called for the mail one day and the girl at the 
post-office window gave her a post-card ad- 
dressed to Hiss Betty Barker. 

Of course “ Miss Betty Barker ” could be 
no one but her very own self. 

So she sat down on the sidewalk and spelled 

out the words which were written in such a 
33 


34 


BETTY BARKER 


plain round hand that even a little girl who had 
just finished first grade could read them. This 
is what Aunt Sue had written: 

“ Dear Betty Barker: 

“ Do you know of any little girl about 
six years old who would like to go away on a 
visit? If you do, tell her to come just as fast 
as ever she can to 

“ Your loving 

“Aunt Sue/' 

Did Betty Barker know of such a girl? 

Her shining Mary Jane pumps twinkled 
home and up to the house to Mother as fast as 
Betty could make them. 

“ But there’s no one to go with you now, 
dear, and you’d be sure to get homesick by 
yourself!” said Mrs. Barker when she read 
Aunt Sue’s post-card. 

Betty’s dark eyes filled with tears. 

“ But I been away lots, Mother — all the 
time in the wilds ! ” she said. 


WHO WAS HOMESICK f 


35 


“ But that was with Mother and Grandpa 
along. Of coure you wouldn’t get homesick 
with either of us along. But going to Aunt 
Sue’s all by yourself would be an altogether 
different matter, and if you did get homesick 
she’d have a terrible time with you. She should 
have written to me instead of asking you and 
then you wouldn’t have been so disappointed.” 

“ Then I couldn’t have gone, and Aunt Sue 
wants me awful bad,” said Betty. 

“ Let her try it,” said Mr. Barker when he 
came home to find a disappointed little daugh- 
ter. “ Perhaps when she knows how it feels to 
be really homesick she won’t want to try it 
again. She’ll have to learn by experience.” 

“ I like to learn by ’sperance,” said Betty, 
smiling happily. 

Then she scampered off to pack her small 
suit-case with all her best clothes and some of 
her second-best, but none of her very oldest. 


36 


BETTY BARKER 


The next day Grandpa put her on the train 
and kissed her more times than Betty could 
count. 

“And I won’t get homesick! ” she told him. 
“ How could I get homesick when I’m going to 
such a nawful lovely place? ” 

Aunt Sue lived only thirty miles away, but 
the ride seemed a very long one because it had 
to be taken in the milk-train, which stopped for 
a long while at every little station to take on 
milk-cans. It was a delightful ride to Betty, 
but at last it came to an end, and the fat con- 
ductor with kind blue eyes and a red face, 
lifted her off at her station. 

There was Uncle Bob waiting for her! He 
made big eyes at her and held up his hands as 
though it was a great surprise to see her, and 
said, “ Bless my blue blouse buttons ! Who 
might this fine young lady be? Seems to me 
like I’ve seen her somewhere before. If I 


WHO WAS HOMESICK ? 37 

were dead sure about it I might give her a ride, 
but I’d hate like poison to ask a strange young 
lady, dressed up all so fine, to ride with 
me!” 

Betty giggled. 

“ It’s me, Uncle Bob ! ” she said. 

“ Why, to be sure ! ” cried Uncle Bob. “ It 
is me! I see that plain enough now. Well, 
Miss Me, you may have a ride if you’re going 
up our way.” 

“Oh, Uncle Bob, it’s Betty Barker!” ex- 
claimed Betty. 

“Betty Barker! Why, that’s some differ- 
ent. Come to think of it, Aunt Sue did tell 
me to come over and see if they put her off the 
train. But how should I know such a fine 
young lady as this was Betty Barker? It’s 
a good thing you spoke, Miss Betty Bar- 
ker.” 

Then he picked her up, pretending she was 


38 


BETTY BARKER 


a bag of meal, and tossed her up into the 
wagon. 

Aunt Sue showed Betty where to find the 
cooky- jar, which was so full of dark and white 
cookies that the cover sat on it like a cocked 
hat, and told Betty to help herself whenever 
she was hungry. 

Betty was very happy to be visiting and eat- 
ing all the cookies she wanted. Aunt Martha 
never let her go near the cooky- jar at home. 
She always said, “ If children are hungry they 
can eat plain bread and butter, and be glad 
enough for the butter! ” 

Betty was happy as she could be and danced 
all about the farm looking at the sleek cows 
chewing their cud, and the horses running 
about in the pasture. She petted a little lamb 
and fed the chickens. Then Mr. Sun went to 
bed. He peeped out at Betty for a moment 
before he hid his face under a big feather-bed 


WHO WAS HOMESICK? 


39 


of clouds, and when he looked at her it made 
Betty think of how far away she was from 
Mother and Grandpa. Two giant tears came 
rolling down her cheeks, then two more came 
chasing after them. Then came another cou- 
ple, racing faster than either of the others, and 
another and another and another, until there 
were so many not even a grown-up could have 
counted them. 

Aunt Sue found her curled up in the win- 
dow-seat where Mr. Sun had bade her good- 
night, sobbing, “ I’ll die or something if I don’t 
see Mother or Grandpa quick! I’m going to 
die ! I’m going to di — ie ! ” 

“Dear me! I shouldn’t have asked her to 
come by herself! ” sighed Aunt Sue. “ They 
warned me that she would be homesick. Betty, 
dear, if only you can stand it until to-morrow 
you’ll be just as happy as you’ve been home- 
sick to-day.” 


40 


BETTY BARKER 


Homesick! 

Betty caught her breath at that word and 
stopped crying. 

That was exactly what she wasn't going 
to be! 

“No, I’m not homesick, Aunt Sue!” she 
whispered. “ I said I wouldn’t be and I’m 
not!” 

She sat up straight and squeezed her eyelids 
so tightly shut that not a tear could get past 
them. 

“ Then why are you crying? ” asked Aunt 
Sue. 

“ I’m crying ’cause they don’t write to me, 
Aunt Sue!” 

She opened her eyes to peep at Aunt Sue, 
and the waiting tears popped out and began 
their race down her pale little cheeks. 

“ They haven’t had time, dear child,” said 
Aunt Sue, gathering Betty into her arms. 


WHO WAS HOMESICK f 


41 


“ But perhaps to-morrow there will be some- 
thing in the mail-box for you.” 

There was a footstep on the porch, the door 
opened and in walked Grandpa ! 

“ Oh-oh-ee! ” cried Betty, bounding into his 
arms. 

A smile turned up the corners of her lips, the 
last tear ran away in a hurry, and the big lump 
in her throat melted away. 

“ I’ve come to stay as long as you do, Betty 
girl. Can you guess why? ” asked Grandpa, 
holding her close. 

“ You had such a lump in your froat you 
couldn’t swallow,” said Betty, snuggling up to 
him and pulling his white whiskers. “And 
you couldn’t keep the tears in your eyes 
’cause you were so homesick for me! Poor 
Grandpa! ” 


CHAPTER V 

THE PROUD CAKE 

O NE warm September afternoon Betty 
wandered into the kitchen. It smelled 
so good in there that she wished Aunt 
Martha would let her help. 

“ What are you baking, Aunt Martha? ” she 
asked. 

“ I’m baking a very rich cake and a plain 
loaf of bread,” replied Aunt Martha, wiping 
her face, which was red with warmth. “ And 
it’s all because Mrs. Smith-Calvin is stopping 
off here for supper. The cake’s for dessert 
and the bread’s in case we’d run short. There 
always is a commotion when she comes 
around.” 


42 


THE PROUD CAKE 


43 


There were bees buzzing in the pinks and 
zinnias outside the kitchen window. Betty 
liked to listen to them, so she sat down on a 
chair next to the window and put her head on 
the kitchen table. Soon she heard voices that 
sounded like the bees’ buzzing. But it couldn’t 
have been the bees, for she could understand 
words. After listening a minute she knew it 
was the rich cake and the plain loaf of bread 
talking. 

“ I suppose you wish you were rich and 
beautiful like me, don’t you? ” the Proud Cake 
said to the Plain Loaf of Bread. “ Look at 
my lovely color! And these brown spots are 
all raisins ! ” 

The Plain Loaf of Bread did not answer 
that a yellow complexion with big black 
blotches all over it was nothing to be proud of. 
It was a sweet and good loaf, so it said, “You 
are the color of sunshine and everybody loves 


44 


BETTY BARKER 


sunshine. I couldn’t be your beautiful color* 
but I wish Aunt Martha had put some nice 
plump raisins in me, too! ” 

Betty wanted to say, “ I’ll ask Aunt Martha 
to stick some in you now,” but she couldn’t in- 
terrupt, for the Proud Cake was already 
speaking. 

“ Raisins belong to the cake family and not 
in common bread! What are you getting out 
of your pan for? ” 

“ I’m just rising so that I can look at you to 
see how beautiful you are,” replied the Plain 
Loaf of Bread. “ I’d like so much to be beau- 
tiful, but since I can’t I hope that, at any rate, 
I’ll be good so that Aunt Martha won’t be dis- 
appointed and so that Mrs. Smith-Calvin and 
all the rest will like me.” 

At this point Aunt Martha popped the 
talkers into the oven and Betty did not hear 
another word until they were taken out 


THE PROUD CAKE 


45 


again and sitting side by side on the kitchen 
table. Then the Plain Loaf of Bread 
cried to the Proud Cake, “ Why, your beau- 
tiful sunshine color has changed to black and 
there’s a hollow in your middle! What a 
shame! ” 

“ That doesn’t matter,” replied the Proud 
Cake, “ because Aunt Martha’s going to put a 
beautiful white coat on me and then I’ll be 
sweeter and lovelier than ever! ” 

“ Will she put a white coat on me, too? ” 
asked the Plain Loaf of Bread. 

“Of course not! You’re nothing but a 
Plain Loaf of Bread! ” 

“ How I wish I could have one so that I 
could be beautiful and people would like me as 
they do you ! ” 

“ If only your mother’d heed my advice 
you’d be having your nap properly every after- 


46 BETTY BARKER 

noon on the bed and not be dozing on my 
kitchen table! ” 

This was Aunt Martha and she was shaking 
Betty. 

“ Why, Aunt Martha, I’m not sleeping! ” 
cried Betty. 

“She’s not sleeping!” said Aunt Martha, 
looking up at the ceiling. 

“ If I was sleeping how could I hear every- 
thing that the cake said to the bread? ” asked 
Betty. 

“ She heard the cake and bread talking to- 
gether and that shows she wasn’t asleep ! ” re- 
marked Aunt Martha, still talking to the ceil- 
ing. 

It always made Betty feel naughty when 
Aunt Martha talked to the ceiling. 

“And you’d better hurry, Betty Barker, and 
get that black face of yours washed. Can’t 
tell where it stops and your hair begins. And 



“Why, Aunt Martha, i'm not sleeping.” — Page 





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THE PROUD CAKE 


47 


get your hair combed and something clean on 
before the fine lady gets around. If you’re 
looking like you do now when she comes you’ll 
hear something from your mother.” 

This time Aunt Martha talked to Betty, so 
she ran off to get washed and combed and 
dressed. 

The supper was delicious until it came to the 
cake. And Aunt Martha usually made such 
good cakes, too! 

But to-night Mrs. Barker said, “ Why, the 
cake fell!” 

“ My ! Who let it fall? ” asked Betty. 

“ Mother says it fell because of the hollow it 
has in the middle,” explained Mrs. Barker. 
“ I suspect that is why Aunt Martha gave it 
such an unusually thick coat of icing. Did 
you bake anything else to-day, Martha? ” 

“ Nothing but a loaf of bread that I set in 
with the cake,” replied Aunt Martha. 


48 


BETTY BARKER 


“ Home-made bread fresh from the oven! 
But that would be a treat!” exclaimed Mrs. 
Smith-Calvin. 

“ I wish you’d bring it on, Martha,” said 
Mrs. Barker. “ I think we’ll all enjoy it with 
these rich peach preserves.” 

“ That’s something like! ” cried Mr. Barker 
when Aunt Martha brought in the Plain Loaf 
of Bread. “ For my part, I’d never look at 
the best of cakes if I could always have such 
bread as this.” 

“ It is a beautiful loaf,” said Mrs. Barker. 

“ What a lovely golden brown it is! ” cried 
Mrs. Smith-Calvin. 

“And it wanted a white coat like the Proud 
Cake had so bad! ” said Betty. 

“ She’s been going on like that ever since she 
went to sleep in the kitchen,” said Aunt 
Martha. 

“Aunt Martha, I wasn’t ■” 


THE PROUD CAKE 


49 


“ Eat your supper now, Betty,” said her 
mother. “And I think you might as well take 
the cake out and throw it into the garbage, 
Martha.” 


CHAPTER VI 

HORSES AND HORSES 

O NE bright morning Grandfather put 
his head in the door to say : 

“ Betty, I wish on the way to school 
you’d stop in at the Burkes’ and tell the boys 
when they come over to help me they’d better 
each bring a couple of horses along. Can you 
remember that? ” 

“ I’ll ’member,” replied Betty, nodding so 
hard that she pulled her straight black hair 
from out the ribbon her mother was trying to 
tie and it had to be done all over. 

Grandpa smiled down on the little girl, won- 
dering what made her eyes so bright and her 
lips so happy. 


60 


HORSES AND HORSES 51 

Betty did not knock at the door of the 
Burkes’ house. She knew the way to their 
shop and ran around to it. 

“ Hello, boys! ” she said to George and Ben 
Burke, just as Grandfather did, although they 
were both older than her own father. 

“ Hello, yourself,” they said, laughing 
loudly. 

“ Grandpa said you’d better bring over a 
couple of horses. When you coming? ” 

“ This afternoon, I presume,” replied Ben. 

“ Do you presume you’ll take the horses 
home to-night? ” asked Betty. 

“ Oh, no, we’ll likely leave them till we get 
through helping your grandpa,” answered Ben, 
smiling down at her with his little watery blue 
eyes. “ That’ll likely be a week.” 

“ O goody! ” cried Betty, dancing about. 

“Ain’t she the queer one though, getting all 
excited about nothing at all!” remarked tall, 


52 


BETTY BARKER 


thin George, stopping his hammering to watch 
her. 

The first moment of recess she told Ada 
that the Burke boys were going to bring a 
couple of horses over to Grandpa’s and leave 
them there for “ likely a week.” 

Although Ada could not see why anybody 
should be so very glad over anything like that, 
she wanted to please Betty, so she acted glad 
and rolled her blue eyes and said, “ My, ain’t 
that grand ! ” 

“ It’s as grand as grand! ” cried Betty. 

At noon Betty said to her mother, “ Can’t I 
stop at Grandpa’s shop this afternoon, Mother, 
’stead of coming straight home from school? ” 

“ Not to-day, dear,” replied Mrs. Barker. 
“ I intend to come to meet you and then we’re 
going to walk out to see Aunt Hattie. She’s 
been laid up with her knee again and has been 


HORSES AND HORSES 


53 


asking to see you. It’s too far for you to go 
alone, so you and I’ll go together to-night.” 

“ Oh, Mother!” cried Betty, with tears of 
disappointment in her eyes. 

The next morning Betty awoke with a dry 
cough and a sore throat. It hurt so that she 
could scarcely eat breakfast. 

“ Keep Betty home from school to-day,” 
said her father as he was leaving the house in 
the morning. 

“ Don’t I have to go to school? ” Betty 
asked her mother. 

“ Not if Father says you should stay home. 
I wonder if you caught cold at Aunt Hattie’s. 
Her house was so close ! ” 

“ But it won’t hurt to go to Grandpa’s shop, 
will it? ” asked Betty. 

“ You can’t go there either, dear. You’ll 
have to stay in the house until we see what 
this develops into.” 


54 


BETTY BARKER 


“ But that’s such a tiny way ! It wouldn’t 
hurt even a sorer froat than mine is,” said 
Betty. 

“ You cannot go anywhere to-day, Betty,” 
replied Mrs. Barker. 

It was three days before Betty’s mother 
thought it wise for her to go outdoors. 

“ Can I go to Grandpa’s shop now? ” asked 
Betty. 

“ He’d like to see you and I’m sure it won’t 
do you any harm,” answered her mother. 
“ When you’re sick, I believe he suffers more 
than you do.” 

When Betty danced into Grandpa’s shop she 
saw that he was working alone. 

“ Where are the Burke boys? ” she 
asked. 

“ So you’re a well lady again, eh, midget? ” 
cried Grandpa, catching her up and tossing 
her high up in the air. 


HORSES AND HORSES 55 

“ It didn’t develop,” said Betty. “ Where 
are the Burke boys? ” 

“ They finished up this morning.” 

“ Oh!” cried Betty. 

Grandpa studied her face for a moment. 

“ What did you want of the Burke boys? ” 
he asked. 

“ It wasn’t them,” said Betty. 

“ Who was it then? ” 

“ It was their horses,” replied Betty. “ I 
been counting on playing with them.” 

“ Well, you can play with them. They left 
them because they have to pass here to go to 
Wilson’s and they’ll take them along to-mor- 
row.” 

“ Oh, where are their horses, Grandpa? ” 
cried Betty, beginning to dance. 

“ Over there in the corner,” said Grandpa, 
going back to his work. 

“ Where? ” asked Betty. 


56 


BETTY BARKER 


“Why, right in front of you! Did your 
illness make you blind, Betty Barker? ” he 
teased. 

“ I said horses , Grandpa!” 

“ Well, there they are — bless me, Betty 
Barker, you didn’t think they were live horses, 
did you? I might have known that was why 
you were so crazy about them! Why, they’re 
nothing but wooden saw-horses, darling!” 

Betty’s head was down on the near horse 
now and she was sobbing. Then Grandpa 
thought of something that drove the worried 
look from his kind eyes. He took Betty into 
his arms. 

“ Don’t you cry one more precious tear over 
those wooden animals, darling,” he whispered. 
“ You listen to me. Know what we’re going 
to do to-morrow — just you and me? We’re 
going to take the train and go to Millers- 
town! ” 


HORSES AND HORSES 


57 


Betty lifted her head and began to pat 
Grandpa’s rough wrinkled cheek. The last 
time they had been to Millerstown they had 
had brown ice-cream in the morning and pink 
ice-cream in the afternoon. 

“ And this time we’re going to do something 
different in Millerstown. We’re going to see 
something that’ll make Betty Barker open her 
two brown eyes ! What would she think of see- 
ing a horse that can add up figures and spell its 
name and do a lot more things just as cute? 
That’s what Betty Barker’s going to see. 
What’d she care if these horses are wood when 
she can see such a sight as that! ” 

“She wouldn’t, Grandpa!” said Betty, 
snuggling close. 


CHAPTER VII 

BETTY MISSES HER LESSON 

B ETTY squirmed about and looked at 
the clock again. She had been looking 
at it every few minutes since school had 
called at noon. Was there ever such a long 
afternoon? 

Usually Betty liked school. But to-day was 
not a usual day. It was her father’s birthday, 
and at five minutes past three she was to meet 
her mother so they might buy him a present 
together. 

Spelling was the last lesson of the day. 
When Miss Blake told the children to get 
ready to write it, Betty took out her paper and 
pencil and wrote her name in neat round let- 
ters at the top of the paper. Very carefully 
58 


BETTY MISSES HER LESSON 59 


she wrote each word after the teacher had pro- 
nounced it. There was a particular reason why 
she wrote so carefully to-day. The pupil who 
missed a word had to stay after school for 
twenty minutes and write it over and over. 
That was bad enough any day — but to-day! 
Why, it would make her so late she couldn’t 
help choose Father’s birthday present! 

“ And I know ’xactly what he’d like,” 
thought Betty between words. “ Mother 
might never even see it if I didn’t show it to 
her.” 

Her brown eyes brightened and she kicked 
her red-stockinged legs happily under the desk 
as she thought of the gay scarf-pin with the red 
and blue stones in it. Wouldn’t Father be de- 
lighted with such a pin? If ever she had ten 
cents all her own again she’d surely buy one 
for herself! 

All of the words were easy except the last 


60 


BETTY BARKER 


one. Betty wrote it as easily as she had the 
other nine but when she looked at it it did not 
seem right. 

But it must be right to-day, for she couldn’t 
stay after school! 

Then Betty did something she had never 
done before. 

She turned around and peeped at Ada 
Brunke’s paper. 

Ada was as good in spelling as she was poor 
in everything else. And Ada had written the 
last word “ e-g-l-e.” 

“ Course that’s the way,” said Betty, and 
quickly erased the letter “ a ” from her word, 
trying to make herself believe that she would 
have changed the word in that way even if she 
hadn’t seen Ada’s paper. 

After they had taken a moment to look over 
their spelling the children exchanged papers 
across the aisle for correction. Miss Blake 


BETTY MISSES HER LESSON 61 

spelled the words aloud. When she came to 
the last word she spelled it “ e-a-g-l-e.” 

It was a quiet Betty who walked slowly 
home from school all alone. She stopped at 
the store where she was to have met her mother, 
but the clerk told her that she had gone long 
ago. 

“Did she — did she buy one of those pins with 
the red and blue stones in it? ” asked Betty. 

“ No, she didn’t,” answered the man with a 
smile. 

“ Oh! ” sighed Betty. “ They’re so pretty 
they almost make you think of the ’Nited 
States flag, don’t they? ” 

“ You bet they do! ” agreed the clerk with 
a laugh. 

“ Where were you, dear? ” asked Mrs. 
Barker when Betty came into the sitting-room. 
“ I waited a little while, then I was sure you’d 
forgotten, so I bought the present alone. I 


62 


BETTY BARKER 


didn’t have any time to spare, on account of 
having company for Father for dinner to- 
night.” 

Forgotten! 

Betty stared at her mother unbelievingly. 
How could such a usually understanding per- 
son think she would forget anything so im- 
portant as that! 

One glance at her little daughter’s face told 
Mrs. Barker how wrong she had been. She 
held out her arms and Betty flew into them. 
With her head on her mother’s shoulder she 
told her what had happened. 

“ If only I hadn’t copied from Ada’s pa- 
per I’d been one hundred and I could have 
helped buy Father’s present ! ” she sobbed. 
“ What did you get, Mother? ” 

“ Some shirts. Father always likes shirts.” 

“ Shirts ! ” sighed Betty. 

And there were pins with red and blue stones 
to be had! 


CHAPTER VIII 
’FRAIDY CAT! 

I N October Aunt May and Cousin Bobby 
came to visit the Barkers. In many ways 
it was fun to have Bobby there, but he 
was such a tease ! 

One Saturday afternoon Grandpa left 
Betty and Bobby with Aunt Hattie who lived 
nearly a mile from town. He told them that 
he would stop for them in the evening and take 
them home. But Grandpa had not yet come at 
sundown. Then the telephone rang. 

“Dear me!” said Aunt Hattie when she 
had finished talking. “ Grandpa forgot to 
stop for you, Betty. And your mother says 
that you and Bobby should start for home at 

once so as to get there before it’s all dark. 
63 


64 


BETTY BARKER 


She says it’s perfectly safe. I’d take you part 
way myself if it wasn’t for my lame knee. I 
don’t dare go out at night with that. Shall 
you be afraid? ” 

Betty looked out of the window. 

“ I might be a little afraid, but not so very 
much, Aunt Hattie,” she said. 

“ ’Fraidy cat! ” cried Bobby. 

“ Let’s! hurry, Bobby, before it gets any 
more dark,” urged Betty. 

“’Fraidy cat! Girls are always ’fraid! I 
aren’t afraid, not if it was more darker — not 
even if it was all dark ! ” boasted Bobby. 

“ Please hurry, Bobby! ” begged Betty. 

“ ’Fraidy cat!” sang Bobby. 

They kissed Aunt Hattie good-bye and 
scurried down the still road. It was around 
the supper hour so nobody was out. There 
was scarcely a sound except the hoot of an owl 
and the good-night twitter of the sleepy birds. 


’FRAIDY CAT! 


65 


Owl-hoots and good-night twitters are lonely 
sounds. 

“ Isn’t it still? ” whispered Betty. “ And 
aren’t there many stars? ” 

“I seen lots manier stars than those!” 
bragged Bobby. “ Bet you’re scared they’ll 
fall on you ’cause you’re a ’fraidy cat! ” 

“ You have not and I aren’t! ” cried Betty, 
stamping her foot. “You’re always saying 
things, Bobby! ” 

“Anyhow I can run faster’n you! Girls 

can’t never run and you’re so fat ” 

“I am not fat, Bobby!” exclaimed Betty. 
“ I’d just like to slap you! ” 

“ You can’t never slap me ’cause you can’t 
run fast enough to catch me! You can’t even 
keep up with me ! I’m going to run away from 
you and leave you all alone in the d-a-rk, and 
then see how scared you’ll be, Betty Barker! ” 
Bobby darted away down the road and in a 


66 


BETTY BARKER 


moment the fast-falling dusk hid him from 
Betty’s sight. She stopped short and drew a 
long breath, then she looked up at the stars, 
twinkling at her just as they did when she was 
at home in bed. 

“ They’re like angel eyes,” she said to her- 
self. 

It made her feel less afraid to keep her eyes 
on them and she had hurried along for some 
distance when she heard the swift patter of the 
runaway’s returning feet. 

“ Now he’s sorry and he’s coming back to 
make up,” she thought. 

But when he came close to her even in the 
dim dark she could see that it was a frightened 
instead of a sorry Bobby who had come back. 

“ Betty, there’s something awful up ahead 
there!” he gasped, clinging to her with both 
hands. “ It’s right around the curve. We 
can’t go that way! ” 


’FBAIDY CAT ! 


67 


“ That’s the only way we can go to get 
home,” said Betty. “ And we got to get home 
fast ’s ever we can ’cause Mother’ll be ’specting 
us.” 

“I won’t go that way! I won’t, Betty 
Barker ! ” cried Bobby. 

“ Come on! ” said Betty, taking his hand. 

“ Let’s go back to Aunt Hattie’s!” he 
begged. 

But Betty pulled him along. 

“ There it is ! Look, Betty ! ” cried Bobby in 
a shrill whisper as they rounded the curve 
Bobby had spoken of. 

For an instant Betty’s heart almost failed 
her and she, too, wanted to turn about and run 
back to Aunt Hattie’s as fast as her legs would 
carry her. But there was Mother waiting at 
home for her, and there were the bright, twin- 
kling eyes above watching her. Then she re- 
membered what she had heard the older girls 


68 


BETTY BARKER 


at school talking about, and she gave a lit- 
tle trembling laugh that was not far from 
tears. 

“ There’s nothing ’tall to be afraid of, 
Bobby,” she said. “ That’s where Natalie 
Burke lives and she’s going to have a Hal- 
lowe’en party to-night and that’s the dec’ra- 
tions. George and Ben fixed it up for her. 
I heard her talking about it at school.” 

But still Bobby held back. 

“ Just look close, Bobby, dear,” said Betty, 
tugging her cousin nearer step by step. “ That 
can’t hurt us! It’s nothing but the Btirkes’ 
hitohing-post dressed up for Natalie’s party.” 

The family were at the supper table still 
when the cousins reached home. 

“ Well, Bobby, did you take good care of 
your cousin coming home? ” asked Aunt May. 

“ He didn’t need to take care of me,” said 
Betty. 


’FRAIDY CAT! 


69 


Bobby looked at her out of the corner of 
his blue eyes. 

Was she going to tell? 

“ There weren’t any folks that were scared 
on the road between here and Aunt Hattie’s, 
were there?” asked Mr. Barker. 

Betty was so busy eating her supper that 
she only looked at her father and said nothing. 

“ Oh, ho! ” laughed Mr. Barker. “ So there 
were! Own up, Bettykins!” 

Bobby laid down his fork and swallowed 
hard. 

“ There was a ’fraidy cat on the road, Uncle, 
but it wasn’t Betty,” he said. “ And anyhow 
she can’t run faster’n me! ” 

“ I know I can’t, Bobby. Not nearly so 
fast,” said Betty. 


CHAPTER IX 
BETTY FINDS A PET 

B ETTY went down the street on her way 
to school with a hop, skip, and jump. 
The hop, skip, and jump were be- 
cause she was so happy, and she was so happy 
because, clutched tightly in her hand, she had 
a shining new quarter of a dollar. 

And this is how she came to have it. 

Betty was always being late for school. 
There were so many interesting things to see 
on the way that she was very likely to forget 
and stop to look at something longer than she 
should have. That was why Grandpa said to 
her the first day of the month: 

“ If you’ll get to school on time every day 
this month, Betty Barker, I’ll give you a bright 

new quarter of a dollar. But if you’re late 

70 


BETTY FINDS A PET 


71 


even one second, and no matter what’s the rea- 
son, you don’t get it.” 

And she had been on time every day. Then 
this noon, on the last day of the month, he had 
come over to say: 

“ I’m going away for a couple of days, 
Betty. I know how hard you’ve tried to earn 
that bright new quarter of a dollar and I know 
you’ve been counting on getting it the minute 
the time’s up. It doesn’t seem hardly fair to 
make you wait two days for it. Since there’s 
just this noon yet and you couldn’t possibly 
be late if you start right now, here it is.” 

“ Oh, thanks, Grandpa!” cried Betty, tak- 
ing her prize and dancing up and down. “ Of 
course I couldn’t, and I’ll start right this min- 
ute.” 

Betty had to go down one block that had not 
a single house in it. She generally ran here. 
To-day she was skipping along this block mer- 


72 


BETTY BARKER 


rily when a sound brought her to a sudden 
halt. 

She looked around, but seeing nothing, she 
started on again — hippety-hop, hippety-hop! 

She hadn’t taken more than three skips when 
she heard the sound again, and again she 
stopped. 

This time she was sure it came from a ditch 
that ran along the side of the road. It came 
again right in front of her as she reached the 
edge of the ditch and she saw, lying in it, a 
dirty, ragged little dog with blood matting the 
hair of his coat. 

“ Oh, dearie, what is the matter? ” cried 
Betty. 

The little dog looked up at her pleadingly. 
He could talk with those beautiful brown eyes 
even if he couldn’t say anything in words. 
Now the eyes said, “ Yes, I’m hurt, Betty. I’m 
in awful pain! Can you help me? ” 



“You can’t move even the littlest bit, can you, dearie.” 

Page 73. 














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BETTY FINDS A PET 


73 


Betty, being an understanding little girl, 
knew very well what they were saying. 

“ You can’t move even the littlest bit, can 
you, dearie? ” asked Betty, lying flat on the 
grass beside the ditch and kicking her red- 
stockinged legs in the air. “ If you could move 
just a little speck at a time I could take you to 
a doctor and he’d make you well. But I ’spect 
you’re a terrible sick person and I’ll have to 
bring the doctor to you. You mustn’t mind 
’cause I’m leaving you. I got to go for your 
sake!” 

The dog moaned again, but Betty did not 
let it stop her. Her red legs twinkled down 
the street and she burst into Dr. Henderson’s 
office so unexpectedly that she nearly upset 
the short, round little doctor who was hanging 
up his coat on the back of the door through 
which she came. 

“ Hello ! ” cried the doctor, rubbing his el- 


74 BETTY BARKER 

bow. “ What’s the row that you nearly kill 
me? Mother sick again? ” 

“ No, it’s somebody else now,” said Betty. 
“ Do you charge as much to doctor a dog as a 
lady? ” 

“ Well ” began the doctor. 

“ It’s a dog ’thout folks,” went on Betty. 
“ I thought maybe you’d do it some cheaper 
for him. But you’ll have to hurry. He’s suf- 
f’ring terrible.” 

The doctor took out his big watch and looked 
at it. But aren’t grown folks slow! 

“ Ten minutes past one,” he said, tucking the 
big silver watch into a bulging pocket. “ Yes, 
I guess I can go now. Where is he? ” 

Betty stopped short. Ten minutes past one ! 
That reminded her that in five minutes school 
would call. If she started at once she’d get 
there in time, for the school building was just 
around the corner from the doctor’s office. 


BETTY FINDS A PET 


75 


But there was the dog. 

“ I’ll take you to him,” said Betty, placing 
her small brown hand in the doctor’s plump 
pink one. The doctor took his black leather 
case in the other hand and they started for the 
dog in the ditch. 

“Poor little chap!” said the doctor when 
he saw the patient. “ Been hit by a machine ! 
But you must be a pretty slow dog to let a 
car hit you ! ” 

“ You oughtn’t not talk like that to him 
when he’s sick,” reproved Betty. “ Maybe he 
was saving somebody’s life or something.” 

“ Most likely something! ” said Dr. Hender- 
son with a laugh. 

“ Now, Miss Barker, I think you’d better 
look the other way or you may give a squeal 
or two as well as the cur,” he said after he had 
examined the dog. “ I’m going to hurt him 
pretty bad for a couple of minutes but I’ll have 


76 BETTY BARKER 

to to make him well in the end. Under- 
stand? ” 

Betty nodded. 

“ I guess I won’t neither turn the other way 
though,” she said. “ 111 hold his head and talk 
to him. It’ll seem more like he has folks if 
somebody does that.” 

When it was all over a white little Betty 
followed the plump doctor to his office. He 
carried the dog carefully in his free arm. 
When he reached the office he placed him 
gently in his favorite cushioned chair. 

“ Don’t you just love him? ” asked Betty, 
hanging over the chair and stroking the dirty, 
matted hair of the dog. 

“ Well ” said the doctor, eyeing the 

ugly little stranger with twinkling eyes. 
“ How many dogs of your own have you? ” 

“ I haven’t one ! Nor no cats, neither ! Nor 
nothing else ’count of Aunt Martha. She says 


BETTY FINDS A PET 


77 


they all the time get under foot and it makes 
her nervous.” 

“ Is to-day Saturday? ” asked the doctor 
suddenly. 

“ Friday,” answered Betty. 

“ Then why are you playing hookey? Why 
aren’t you in school? ” 

Dr. Henderson sounded very cross, but 
Betty was not afraid of him. She would never 
be afraid of him now because he had been so 
kind to the hurt dog. 

“ I’m going now,” she said. “ I had to get 
you for the dog.” 

She opened her warm little hand and placed 
the shining new quarter on the doctor’s dark 
wooden desk, then turned away quickly so that 
she would not see its beautiful shine. 

“ That’s to pay for him. It’s all I got,” she 
said. 

As she spoke she remembered that, after 


78 


BETTY BARKER 


all, the money was not hers now. She had not 
been to school on time every day this month. 

“ And I haven’t got that! ” she cried, pick- 
ing it up again. “ I’ve got to give it back to 
Grandpa. He said he’d give it to me if I 
wasn’t late even a second all month but if I 
was late, no matter why, I couldn’t have it. 
But I’ll pay for him with my pennies. I get 
lots of them. Sometimes you have to wait for 
other folks, too, don’t you? ” 

“ You bet I do! ” replied the doctor. “ But 
I’ve been thinking that since he hasn’t any folks 
I’d just like to do it for nothing.” 

Betty was beaming as she skipped out of the 
office. Even Miss Blake’s scolding because she 
was so very late did not take the happiness out 
of Betty’s heart. Nor even losing the new 
quarter could take it all away. 

When Grandfather came back, Betty gave 
it to him. 


BETTY FINDS A PET 


79 


It hurt him more to take it than it did for 
Betty to part with it, but his word was his 
word and Grandpa never went back on that. 

One evening not long after this Dr. Hender- 
son dropped in. Betty was already in bed, so 
she did not see her friend. He had a market- 
basket with him which he carried very carefully 
and set down on the floor beside him. For an 
hour he talked with Mr. and Mrs. Barker and 
Aunt Martha and Grandpa. Aunt Martha 
sniffed every now and then. Once she reached 
over and very gingerly patted the ragged head 
with the brown eyes that peeped over the edge 
of the basket. 

“So you see I think it’s a shame for a child 
that’s as crazy over animals as Betty is not to 
have a single live pet,” said the doctor at last. 
“ And she’s earned the right to keep this yel- 
low cur.” 

“ Seeing how it is, I guess I could stand it 


80 


BETTY BARKER 


if he did get under foot, and I’ll try not to 
notice my nerves,” said Aunt Martha. 

“ And what’s a quarter to Betty compared 
with him! ” chuckled Grandpa. 


CHAPTER X 

THE PINK-EYED COOKY BOY 

“ /¥ Y, it’s the loveliest present I ever did 

see! ” cried Betty when she opened 
the newspaper package which Ada 
gave her the last day of school before tfie 
Christmas holidays. 

“ Ain’t it just grand? ” agreed Ada. “ An’ 
I made it every speck myself an’ I put pink 
pep’mint eyes in ’count of you like pink pep’- 
mints so much, Betty.” 

“ And just think that you could make him 
all your own self with pink eyes ’n’ everything! 
You’re a nawful smart girl, Ada — ’bout some 
things.” 

Betty had to add that last, for she very well 
81 


82 


BETTY BARKER 


knew that Ada was anything but “ smart ” at 
school, except in spelling. 

“ I am,” replied Ada. 

“ I can’t hardly wait ’til I get home to show 
him to Grandpa,” said Betty. “ I’m going to 
hurry fast ’s ever I can.” 

Betty started for home, hippety-hop, hold- 
ing the gingerbread boy carefully in front of* 
her so that she could smell his sweetness and 
spiciness the better. 

“ My, how lovely you do smell! ” she said to 
him. 

As she hippety-hopped past the blacksmith- 
shop, Billy limped out of the door. He was 
the blacksmith’s little boy. He was always 
ragged and dirty, and crippled so that he could 
not run about as other children did. This 
made Betty feel so sorry for him that she never 
passed him without stopping for a friendly 
word. 


THE PINK-EYED COOKY BOY 83 


Now she paused in the middle of a hop and 
said, “ Hello, Billy! Look what I got! It’s a 
Christmas present that Ada made for me all 
her very own self! ” 

“ M-m-mm ! ” sighed Billy, sniffing hungrily 
even before Betty had taken the wrappings 
from the pink-eyed cooky boy. “We never 
have nothin’ ’at smells good like ’at to our 
house ! ” 

Betty knew that Billy’s mother was dead and 
that an old aunt tried to keep house for them. 
She had heard the grown-ups say that his 
father did not amount to much and she knew 
they were very poor. 

She looked long at the cooky boy. 

He was such a big, fat one that surely she 
could give lame Billy a taste and still there’d 
be lots of him left. The pink-eyed boy would 
be a little crippled himself if she did it, but 
Billy would be happy. 


84 


BETTY BARKER 


“ There’s a lot on one of his legs, Billy,” she 
said. “ They’re awful thick ones. You can 
have a leg.” 

Billy grabbed a leg with never a thought 
about spoiling the pink-eyed boy’s beauty. He 
put the leg between his two rows of small white 
teeth and said, “ M-m-mm! ” again. 

Betty hopped happily on her way until she 
turned the corner and ran plump into the big 
thin dog that was always nosing around gar- 
bage cans. 

“ I s’pose you’re hungry ’susual,” she said 
reproachfully as he sniffed at the package. 
“ I ’spect you smelled my pink-eyed cooky 
boy and you’d really ought to have a Christmas 
present. I don’t believe you ever did have one 
in all your life. Well, you can have the other 
leg. There’s a lot to it.” 

Betty had to close her eyes while she broke 
off the other leg and held it out to the thin dog. 


THE PINK-EYED COOKY BOY 85 


He gave a sharp bark of thanks and gobbled 
up the leg with a gulp. 

“ I hope I won’t meet anybody else that 
needs a present/’ said Betty as she wrapped up 
the legless gingerbread boy and went on her 
way. 

But even as she said it she saw across the 
street the ragged ragman’s bony horse. Only 
yesterday she had cried herself almost sick be- 
cause the ragged ragman himself was giving 
the bony horse a beating because he found it 
hard to pull a heavy load. 

“ I guess I’ll pertend I don’t see him,” 
thought Betty. 

But she had taken only a few steps 
when she stopped and looked across at the 
horse. 

“ Poor thing, you’ve got to have a pres- 
ent — getting whipped ’n’ everything!” she 
cried. 


86 


BETTY BARKER 


Running across the road, she unwrapped the 
legless,; pink-eyed cooky boy and examined 
him. 

“ The arms are lots littler than the legs,” 
she said. “ There wouldn’t be much on one for 
such a big mouth as you’ve got. I s’pose you’ll 
just have to have his two arms ! ” 

She broke them off and held them up to the 
bony horse. He snapped them both up at one 
mouthful. 

“ And I’d like to give you a lovely pink eye 
extra ’cause you love candy and you have such 
a nawful hard time of it with whippings ’n’ 
everything. Here ’tis ! ” 

Betty pulled out one of the pink peppermint 
eyes and held it up to the bony brown horse. 
He picked it up on his red tongue and Betty 
was sure he looked much happier even though 
he did gobble so fast she wondered how he 
could taste it at all. 


TEE PINK-EYED COOKY BOY 87 

“ That’s all, and ‘ Merry Christmas ’! ” she 
said as she hopped away. 

She stopped her hopping when she met little 
yellow-headed Teddy Smith. 

“ What you crying for? ” she asked as she 
saw that both his dirty fists were rubbing his 
blue eyes. 

“I losted my canny penny!” whimpered 
Teddy. 

“ Don’t cry, little boy,” said Betty, putting 
her arm around him and kissing him. “ I got 
something nicer ’n the candy-store, Teddy. 
Look!” 

Scarcely daring herself to look at the leg- 
less, armless, one-eyed cooky hoy, Betty broke 
off the head with its lonely pink eye staring 
out in surprise at such doings, and gave it to 
little Teddy Smith. 

Teddy’s tears turned to smiles, but his mouth 
was too full of the cooky boy’s head to talk. 


88 


BETTY BARKER 


Betty hopped on home. 

Grandpa was there and she ran to him for a 
hug and a kiss. 

“ Ada gave me the loveliest gingerbread 
cooky boy that she baked all by her own self 
with pink pep’mints for eyes ! ” cried Betty, un- 
wrapping what was left of the cooky boy. 

“ If you call that the loveliest gingerbread 
boy, then they’ve changed some since my 
young days,” said Grandpa. “ Ours had arms 
and legs, and sometimes raisins for eyes and 
nose and buttons. That looks to me more like 
a thick ginger cooky.” 

“But that isn’t all of him!” cried Betty. 
“ It’s only what’s left. He had two fat legs 
and two arms and pink pep’mint eyes, 
Grandpa! I gave Billy Blacksmith a leg 
’cause he’s so mis’bul and the garbage dog a leg 
’cause he’s so hungry, and the ragged ragman’s 
bony brown horse I had to give two arms ’cause 


TEE PINK-EYED COOKY BOY 89 


his mouth’s so big, and I gave him a pink pep’- 
mint eye ’cause he got a whipping, and Teddy 
Smith lost his penny so I gave him the other 
eye and the head! ” 

“ Well, now that I know the life history of 
the boy it seems to me he is just about the finest 
cooky boy I ever did see! ” said Grandpa. “ I 
know it’s the best-looking cooky I ever saw. 
I don’t know but that it looks better to me than 
even the whole cooky boy would have — pink 
eyes and all.” 

“ If you like it so, you take it and eat it, 
Grandpa ! ” cried Betty, thrusting the round, 
puffed body of the pink-eyed cooky boy into 
her grandfather’s hand. 

“ Bless your dear generous heart, Betty 
Barker!” said Grandpa, stooping to kiss her. 
“ I couldn’t eat a bite of that cooky boy even 
if it is the best-looking one ever was.” 

“ If you think he’s lovely now, Grandpa, I 


90 BETTY BARKER 

wish you could ’a’ seen him with his arms and 
legs and eyes on!” sighed Betty. 

Grandpa shook his head. 

“ He couldn’t have looked so pretty to me 
then as he does now, Betty, darling!” said 
Grandpa. 



CHAPTER XI 

ADA’S TURN 

S ANTA CLAUS does not always come 
down the chimney! 

Ada will tell you that, and she knows! 
The first time he actually came to her he did 
not go near the chimney. In fact, he stopped 
a good distance from it, as though he were 
afraid of it. But then it wasn’t an encourag- 
ing chimney. 

If Santa looks anything like his picture (and 

all the boys and girls who have seen him say 

he does) he could never have gone down Ada’s 

chimney. He would not have been the smart 

old fellow that he is if he had even tried to do 

so, for there’s not a doubt but that he would 
91 


92 BETTY BARKER 

have stuck in it. Then half the world of chil- 
dren would have had to go without Christmas 
presents because Santa Claus was held in Ada 
Brunke’s old chimney, tight by his very fat 
middle. The chimney was a little, tumbling- 
down affair on the top of a small, tired house 
that had settled down on its side next to the 
railroad track. 

But on this particular Christmas Ada 
wanted Santa to come as she had never wanted 
him before. Perhaps making the pink-eyed 
cooky boy for Betty had made her think more 
about Christmas. Betty had told her that she 
expected lots of presents, for Santa Claus al- 
ways stopped at her house. She even promised 
that if she could keep awake and could see 
Santa Claus herself, she would ask him es- 
pecially to stop at the broken-down house next 
to the railroad track. And if he hadn’t put 
any presents in especially for Ada she would 


ADA’S TURN 


93 


tell him to divide up her own presents with 
her, and maybe he might take one or two pres- 
ents from some rich little girl. 

“ Don’t you * guess he’ll come to-night, 
Ma? ” Ada asked anxiously as evening drew 
near. 

“ He don’t come no place where folks ain’t 
got no money,” replied Mrs. Brunke, pressing 
a knotted hand against her side. 

“ I guess he ain’t going to pass me by every 
single time all my life,” said Ada. “ And if 
Betty Barker kin keep awake she’s goin’ to 
tell him to come here and leave me some of her 
presents. Maybe it’ll be my turn to-night and 
he’ll stop off here like he does to other chil- 
dren’s houses.” 

“ Other folks ’s got money,” answered Mrs. 
Brunke drearily. 

Ada was used to her mother’s discouraged 
way of talking and paid not so much attention 


94 


BETTY BARKER 


to it as she did to Betty’s promise that she 
would speak a good word for her to Santa 
Claus. 

So she hung up her stocking. Even that 
was different from other folks’. It did not look 
at all like a stocking when she left it dangling 
from a rusty nail in the door-frame, for she 
had to tie a knot in it just above the heel be- 
cause the foot had so many holes in it and 
such big holes that even an orange would 
not have stopped them up. But it was 
all Ada had, and if Santa Claus filled even 
that skinny leg of a stocking it would 
be a merry, merry Christmas for Ada 
Brunke! 

Christmas morning came with a bright blue 
sky and bitter cold. No fire was kept over 
night in the shanty next to the railroad track, 
but Ada did not mind the cold. She did not 
have to dress on cold mornings because she did 


ADA’S TURN 


95 


not take off her clothes on cold nights. They 
were needed to keep her warm beneath the thin 
bed-covers. 

The minute she awoke she hopped out of bed 
and ran, barefoot, to the door of the next room, 
for it was Christmas morning and there might 
be ! 

But there wasn’t! 

Not a sign was there that Santa Claus had 
been there the night before! 

The skinny stocking, with the big knot just 
below its middle, dangled as empty as a last- 
year’s bird’s-nest. 

Ada did not cry. She bit her lip hard and 
tiptoed to the window in her bare feet to have 
a look at the Christmas weather. But she did 
not see the blue sky, with the pink of the sun- 
rise touching little white clouds, nor did she 
notice the weather at all. For there at the gate 
lay a Christmas tree — not an ordinary, every- 


96 


BETTY BARKER 


day Christmas tree, either, but one of the big 
kind that they have at Sunday School enter- 
tainments. A short distance from the big 
green tree was a box wrapped in red and 
green paper and another wrapped in gold pa- 
per and ever so many knobby packages 
wrapped in any kind of paper at all. 

“ I knew Santy would have to remember 
me! ” cried Ada. “ I just guess he did! He’s 
too smart to try to get down that chimbley of 
our’n but he give me a turn! ” 

Ada’s mother shook her head when she saw 
the Christmas tree and the packages and boxes 
scattered near the gate. 

“ I dunno about it, Ada! ” she said. 

Then a new spirit seemed to take hold of 
her. Her little girl had never had anything, 
why shouldn’t these gifts be hers? Suppose 
she weren’t with her child another Christmas? 
Why not give her something to remember? 


ADA’S TURN 97 

So she tied an old red shawl over her head and 
around her thin shoulders, and together she 
and Ada dragged in the tree and carried in the 
boxes and packages. 

There were candies and candles, nuts and 
pop-corn, apples and oranges, and everything 
else that was ever put on a Christmas tree. 

And such presents! A fur-trimmed coat 
and a bonnet, a muff, picture-books, skates, 
games, a ball, an umbrella, a big doll that could 
talk and go to sleep, and a bed and perambula- 
tor just the right size for the big, golden-curled 
doll. 

Away over in another part of the town, in 
her big, rich house was a more surprised little 
girl that Christmas morning than even Ada 
Brunke. For Ada had more than half ex- 
pected all the time that Santa Claus would 
remember her this year, while not even in her 


98 


BETTY BARKER 


wildest dreams could Vivian Prendergast have 
imagined that he would forget all about her. 

The fattest Santa Claus ever pictured could 
have gone down the big chimney of her father’s 
house without so much as taking in a breath 
to make himself smaller. He had never yet 
failed to bring Vivian everything a little girl 
could think of and a number of things she 
never could have thought of by herself. 

And this time he didn’t come ! 

“What’s the matter with Santa Claus?” 
sobbed Vivian in her nurse’s arms. 

“ I ’spect it’s count of your ma being away 
and everything was left tell the last minute! ” 
comforted black Lucile. “ Just you wait tell 
to-morrow came, honey, and they’ll buy out 
all the stores for you.” 

And while Vivian was questioning her nurse 
the colored coachman was saying to Mr. Pren- 
dergast : 



Together she and Ada dragged in the tree. — Page 97 







t 




ADA’S TURN 


99 


“ I honest to goodness don’t know where 
them things took themselves to, suh! What 
with everything being left tell the last minute 
and all them things to get at the store and the 
post-office I told you I was a-skeerd they’d tip 
before I left town, don’t you dismember, suh? 
And them hosses was skeered-like all the way 
home, so’s I couldn’t hardly hold them and I 
couldn’t watch them presents nohow, else 
they’d run away. I been all along back the 
way I came and them presents they ain’t no- 
where, suh! ” 


CHAPTER XII 


A “NIMPOSSIBLE” CHILD 

“£^INCE her mother is sick you might 
bring Ada home with you this noon and 
she can have her lunch here,” said Mrs. 
Barker to Betty one morning as she was start- 
ing for school. 

“ Ada couldn’t come to-day ’cause her 
apron’d be dirtier than usual ’count of her 
mother being sick. She’s got to know ahead 
when she’s going any place so’s she can wear 
her dirty apron longer and save the clean one 
for going away. Ada’s only got two aprons 
and she can’t go any place ’less she wears 
one.” 

“ Then suppose you invite her for Wednes- 
100 


A “ ^IMPOSSIBLE " CHILD 101 

day,” said Mrs. Barker. “ She’ll probably en- 
joy it all the more for having a few days to 
look forward to it.” 

“Ada’s coming for lunch to-day!” cried 
Betty at the breakfast table on Wednesday 
morning. 

“ Surely not to-day, Betty! ” exclaimed Mrs. 
Barker. 

“Why, it is to-day, Mother!” persisted 
Betty. “ Don’t you remember how you said 
divide her for Wednesday ’count of a clean 
apron? ” 

“ Yes, I did say ' invite her for Wednesday,’ 
and then forgot all about it,” admitted Mrs. 
Barker. “ If it were only any other day or 
any one else but Ada! Mrs. Smith-Calvin is 
going to lunch with us to-day, Betty, and I 
can’t help but think Ada would have a better 
time if we were alone.” 

“ But Ada’ll like lots better to have some- 


102 


BETTY BARKER 


body else ’cause that makes it like a party,” 
said Betty. “ Ada’ll be glad as glad! ” 


Ada, in a stiffly starched blue-and-white 
checked gingham apron with a row of china 
buttons down the back, with her pale red hair 
braided in two tight little braids and fastened 
with pieces of string, gazed adoringly at the 
dazzling Mrs. Smith-Calvin and was “ glad as 
glad!” 

“ Ain’t it grand to have such a swell to eat 
with — silks ’n’ di’mon’s ’nevery thing! Don’t 
she shine, though?” she whispered to Betty. 
But the whisper was loud enough to be heard 
in the other room. 

Betty looked across the table at the magnifi- 
cent guest and then at the small gingham-clad 
figure beside her. 

“ She does shine! Let’s call her the Spark- 


A “NIMPOSSIBLE” CHILD 


103 


ling Lady like a fairy story. It’s nice to have 
her here, but not any nicer ’n ’tis to have you, 
Ada,” said Betty. 

Ada’s thin little face flushed with happiness. 
Betty had said that! It made her almost too 
happy to eat. 

“ Don’t you like baked potatoes, Ada? ” 
asked Mrs. Barker, not understanding the rea- 
son for the untouched food on the little guest’s 
plate. 

“ Yes’m. I do when they’re clean,” replied 
Ada. 

Mrs. Smith-Calvin laughed and her laugh 
had music in it like a bird’s song. 

“ These are,” said Betty. “ Aunt Martha 
did ’em and she cleans dreadful clean. When 
Mother was sick she got me ready for school, 
’n’ I know.” 

“ And it’s high time for you to be going 
there now,” said Aunt Martha, pausing on her 


104 


BETTY BARKER 


way to the kitchen. “ I was behind with the 
lunch and there’s no time to spare.” 

“ But we didn’t have dessert yet, and Ada’s 
company! ” cried Betty. 

“ Aunt Martha will cut you each a piece of 
sponge cake and you can eat that on the way 
to school,” said Mrs. Barker. 

“And finger-bowls! Oh, Mother, you al- 
ways do have finger-bowls when Mrs. Smith- 
Calvin is here to meals! Can’t Ada and me 
have ’em, too, ’cause Ada’s company? ” 

“ Yes, yes, Betty,” consented her mother. 

Aunt Martha brought the finger-bowls, and 
Betty dipped her pink finger tips in the little 
glass dish and then dried them carefully on 
her napkin. 

Ada watched her curiously but left her bowl 
untouched. 

“ Why don’t you do it, Ada? ” asked Betty. 

“ I don’t like to wash my hands when they 


A “ ^IMPOSSIBLE ” CHILD 105 

ain’t dirty,” returned Ada. “ And mine ain’t 
now ’cause I scrubbed ’em extra this morning 
’count of coming here to eat.” 

“ But that’s dif’rent as dif’rent from putting 
your fingers in a finger-bowl. Finger-bowls 
are to be stylish and not to be clean and you 
don’t have ’em at the table ’less there’s com- 
pany, so when your company you should dip 
in one. C’mon, Ada, or we’ll be late! ” 

The two little girls hurried out, but not quite 
quickly enough for Betty to escape hearing 
Mrs. Smith-Calvin say, “ What an impossible 
child! How can you allow Betty to play with 
her?” 

On her \yay home from school Betty stopped 
at her grandfather’s carpenter shop. 

“ What’s a nimpossible child, Grandpa? ” 
she asked. 

“ There isn’t such a thing, blessedness,” re- 
plied Grandpa, picking her up and kissing her, 


106 


BETTY BARKER 


“ There just isn’t such a thing and whoever 
says it doesn’t know the heart of a little child.” 

Betty hopped on home. Mrs. Smith-Calvin 
was still there. Betty could hear her laugh 
trilling even before she saw her. She danced 
up to her and said, “ Ada and me are going to 
call you the Sparkling Lady like a fairy story 
’cause you shine so, and there isn’t any such a 
thing as a nimpossible child, and when anybody 
says it they don’t know the heart of a little 
child.” 

The Sparkling Lady drew Betty to her and 
gazed long into Betty’s earnest face. Then a 
mist came over her violet eyes and she whis- 
pered, “ You are right, dear. And I must 
learn to know the hearts of little children. I 
want to begin right away. So I’m going to 
have you and Ada take lunch with me at the 
hotel to-morrow. It will be ready when you 
come in and you won’t have to leave before the 



The sparkling lady drew Betty to her. — Page 106, 


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A “ NIMPOSSIBLE ” CHILD 


107 


dessert. And there’ll be finger-bowls with 
little candies on the plate beside them.” 

“ And Ada can go to-morrow ’cause her 
apron’ll be clean enough from to-day,” said 
Betty happily. 


CHAPTER XIII 

BETTY AND ADA GO OUT TO LUNCH 

I T seemed to the two little girls the next day 
that the noon hour would never come, for 
their thoughts were not on their lessons 
but on the luncheon they were to have with the 
Sparkling Lady at a real hotel. 

Ada looked at the clock so often that she did 
not have time to finish her numbers, which 
meant that she must stay after school. But 
that would be in the afternoon and Ada cared 
not a whit so long as she did not have to stay 
in at noon and so miss the luncheon. She 
would almost rather be in the cool schoolroom 
with its pretty pictures and bright flowers any- 
way than to be at home where conditions were 
108 


BETTY AND ADA GO TO LUNCH 109 

never very pleasant, and now that her mother 
was sick they were worse than ever. 

But twelve o’clock did come at last, as every- 
thing does come if only we wait long enough. 
The children lost not a second in scurrying 
down the street and around the corner to the 
big white building with green blinds, which was 
the hotel. Betty wore her red-and-blue plaid 
silk dress, her new red ribbons, and red silk 
stockings. Ada had on the same stiff blue- 
and-white gingham apron she had worn to 
Betty’s house, and she had kept it surprisingly 
clean for the Sparkling Lady’s party. Her 
hair was combed back as smoothly and tightly 
as she could comb it, and braided in the same 
two pigtails tied with string. 

Betty had asked her mother if she ought not 
to tie her black mop of hair back with string in- 
stead of the new ribbons so as to be polite to 
Ada, but Mrs. Barker told her she should be 


110 


BETTY BARKER 


polite to Mrs. Smith-Calvin by looking her 
prettiest. Betty thought this an easy way to 
be polite. 

Mrs. Smith-Calvin in her bright blue silk 
dress, with her shining golden hair and starry 
violet eyes, looked quite as sparkling to the 
little girls as she had the day before when they 
had given her her new name. She met them 
on the hotel verandah and kissed them both. 
She did not seem to notice a bit of difference 
between Ada’s gingham apron and string-tied 
pigtails, and Betty’s plaid silk dress and glossy 
black hair topped off with the new red rib- 
bons. 

Betty was glad of this. She had not been 
quite sure of the Sparkling Lady because she 
had called Ada “ a nimpossible child.” But 
that was before she had looked so sweetly into 
Betty’s eyes and said she wanted to know the 
hearts of little children. Probably knowing 


BETTY AND ADA GO TO LUNCH 111 

hearts made you act different about lots of 
things. 

“ I’ve spoken for the round table over there 
in the corner where the people are just getting 
up,” said the Sparkling Lady, taking the girls 
by the hand and leading them to the table as 
she spoke. 

“ O my! ” cried Ada a moment after she had 
slipped into her chair at the table. 

“ What is it, dear? ” asked the Sparkling 
Lady. 

“ Nothin’,” replied Ada, but her red, 
freckled little hand was busy with the pocket 
of her apron. 

“ Now we must not have any delay, please,” 
said the Sparkling Lady to the white-aproned, 
white-capped maid who cleared off the table. 
“ These little girls are my guests and I want 
them to have the nicest lunch we can give them 
with plenty of time to eat it, for they must 


112 


BETTY BARKER 


be through so as to get back to school on 
time.” 

The girl answered not a word, but clattered 
the dishes together and jerked off the service 
cloth angrily. 

“My, but she’s awful cross!” said Betty. 
“ That’s the way Aunt Martha acts when she’s 
mad. Maybe this lady doesn’t like to have 
children come to her house to eat.” 

“ Her crossness can have nothing to do with 
us I am sure,” replied the Sparkling Lady. 
“ Shall I tell you what we’re going to have? 
Chicken soup, fried chicken, creamed potatoes, 
fruit salad, and little brown rolls. Then for 
dessert we’ll have pink ice-cream and white 
frosted cakes.” 

“ That’s a reg’lar party! ” cried Betty with 
dancing brown eyes as she clapped her 
hands. 

“ M-m-mm! Ain’t that grand! ” said Ada. 


BETTY AND ADA GO TO LUNCH 113 

“ With pink ice-cream ’n’ frosted cake ’nevery- 
thing! ” 

“ And finger-bowls/’ added Betty. 

“ I don’t care so much for them things like 
wash-basins,” replied Ada. 

They enjoyed the luncheon even to the 
finger-bowls with pink and green candies on 
the plate beside them. Ada was persuaded to 
dip her dark-rimmed little fingers into the 
water when she was told she must do so if she 
wished to eat the candies. But at last the 
luncheon was over and it was time to go back 
to school. 

“ I can’t say that our maid deserves this, and 

yet ” said the Sparkling Lady as though 

speaking to herself. She finished her sentence 
by slipping something bright under her napkin. 

For just a second Ada loitered behind the 
Sparkling Lady and Betty. She whispered 
“ O my! ” to herself again and once more her 


114 


BETTY BARKER 


red freckled hand was busy with the pocket of 
her apron. The maid came along, flipped up 
the napkins and gave a rude laugh. The 
Sparkling Lady’s pretty pink color turned a 
deep red for a moment and her eyes sparkled 
in a different way from what Betty had seen 
them before. 

“ I had a very nice time and thank you very 
much,” said Betty properly as they bade the 
Sparkling Lady good-bye. “ Now you say it, 
Ada!” 

“ Me, too! ” agreed Ada heartily. 

On the way back to school Ada said, “ If you 
wait till I get my numbers done to-night, me 
’n’ you kin go and get stacks of ice-cream and 
choclut candy.” 

“ What you pertending, Ada Brunke? ” 

“ I ain’t pertending nothin’,” replied Ada. 
“ Look ! Can’t we? ” 

Ada opened her warm little palm and there 


BETTY AND ADA GO TO LUNCH 115 

against its pinkness there rested two silver 
pieces of money, just the kind Grandpa had 
given Betty for not being late for school, and 
which she had had to return to him. 

Betty had never seen Ada have even a penny 
before. 

“ Wherever did you get such a ter’ble lot of 
money, Ada? ” she asked. 

“ I found ’m! ” answered Ada. 

“ Where did you find two? ” asked Betty. 

“ I found ’em on the table where we et,” said 
Ada. 

“ I don’t think you ought to tooken them, 
Ada. Maybe somebody put them there instead 
of just losing them. You can’t spend them 
’cause it wouldn’t be polite to the Sparkling 
Lady when we were her company. We got to 
go and tell her we found such a lot of money 
on the table and if she says it’s all right, ’tis.” 

The children ran back to the hotel and while 


116 


BETTY BARKER 


Ada held out the two quarters on her pink 
little palm, Betty explained how she came to 
have them. 

“No wonder the maid was rude and we had 
such poor service!” exclaimed the Sparkling 
Lady. “ She knew that first quarter had been 
left for her by the people she served before us 
and then she thought we left without giving 
her anything after making a good many extra 
demands upon her. We’ll go and find the maid 
and Ada may give the money to her. They’re 
called tips, dear, and we leave them on the 
table to show that her services are appre- 
ciated.” 

“ They were ’predated,” said Betty. 

They found the girl and Mrs. Smith-Calvin 
explained. 

“ I shouldn’t ’a’ acted that way, ma’am,” 
said the girl half sobbing. “ And I won’t ever 
again, no matter what. But I been wanting 


BETTY AND ADA GO TO LUNCH 117 


extra money so bad on account of my ma. 
She’s sick and needs things ” 

“ That’s all, dears. Run along to school 
now,” said the Sparkling Lady to the children. 

Then she turned to the maid and said, “ Now 
tell me all about your mother. I’m so happy 
studying the hearts of people and if I can help 
your mother ” 

“Now we know a new name for quarters, 
don’t we, Ada? ” said Betty as they skipped 
back to school, hand in hand. “ They’re tips, 
Ada, and I like to say tips better than to say 
quarters, don’t you? If I hadn’t been late that 
day I helped my dog Custard, I could have 
kept the tip Grandpa gave me. But then I’d 
rather have Custard than a tip and if I hadn’t 
helped him get a doctor I wouldn’t ever have 
got him.” 


CHAPTER XIV 

ADA FINDS A NEW HOME 

“ A DA’S ma’s dead!” exclaimed Betty 
/ \ one noon as she came in from school. 

“ What? ” asked Mrs. Barker, 
dropping a blue-and-white dish she was carry- 
ing out to the kitchen. It fell to the floor and 
shivered into little pieces. 

“Ada’s ma’s dead! ” repeated Betty, her eyes 
on the broken blue-and-white dish. 

“ Say ‘ mother,’ dear,” corrected Mrs. Bar- 
ker. “ But, Betty, I didn’t have the least idea 
that Mrs. Brunke was so sick. I thought she 
just wasn’t feeling well as she’s complained a 
good deal the last year according to what Ada 
has told you. If I’d known she was so sick 
I’d have gone to see her and taken her currant 

jelly and fruit and such things.” 

118 


ADA FINDS A NEW HOME 119 

“ Oh, you didn’t have to,” answered Betty. 
“ The Sparkling Lady did that.” 

“ Who? ” asked Mrs. Barker. 

“ The Sparkling Lady — that’s what me an’ 
Ada call Mrs. Smith-Calvin now ’count of she 
shines so with silk and di’mon’s and everything. 
She took oranges and chicken and jelly and 
grapes and flowers and pillows and sheets and 
everything to Ada’s ma — mother, so you didn’t 
need to.” 

“ Sibyl Smith-Calvin doing that for such a 
person as Ada’s mother!” exclaimed Mrs. 
Barker. “ But how could Sibyl Smith-Calvin 
do all this? She’s not staying here. She 
always lets me know when she is.” 

“ She comes in a great big automobile away 
from where she lives almost every day,” ex- 
plained Betty. “ Why is Ada’s mother such 
a person ? 99 

“ Well, she must have had a change of 


120 


BETTY BARKER 


heart,” went on Mrs. Barker, not heeding 
Betty’s question. “ She used never to think 
of a soul besides herself and here she’s doing 
work that I’ve neglected to do and which right- 
fully belonged to me since I’m right here in 
the same town with Mrs. Brunke.” 

“ It’s ’count of she’s understanding hearts 
now, Mother,” said Betty. “ She used to look 
at clothes and manners and now ’stead she 
looks underneath your plaid silk or your ging- 
ham apron to your heart. And you needn’t 
mind ’bout Ada’s ma — mother, — ’cause the 
Sparkling Lady took her nicer things than you 
would have.” 

“ It’s not that Mrs. Brunke has not been 
cared for that hurts me, Betty, but the fact 
that I was so thoughtless as not to go to see a 
sick woman — one of my own townswomen,” 
replied Mrs. Barker. “ And now poor little 
Ada is left motherless.” 


ADA FINDS A NEW HOME 121 

“ She’s ’thout folks like Custard used 
to be. But she don’t act poor, Mother. She 
acts awful proud ’cause her mother’s 
dead.” 

“ Proud! What a word to use, darling! 
Ada’s probably stunned a little by her grief 
and hasn’t much to say, but that isn’t being 
proud.” 

“ But she has got a nawful lot to say! ” cried 
Betty. “ She says * My, ain’t it grand to have 
the Sparkling Lady by our house all the time ! ’ 
and she says they’re going to have a grand 
fun’ral with lots and lots of flowers and a min- 
ister and carriages, and Ada says her ma’s got 
a black silk dress and it’s the first black silk 
dress she ever did have ” 

“ That’s enough, dear,” said Mrs. Barker. 
“ Ada simply doesn’t realize that her mother 
is dead. She hasn’t had time to miss her yet. 
Just now she is all taken up with the excite- 


122 


BETTY BARKER 


ment. When Ada really comprehends that 
she will never have her mother with her again, 
she will certainly feel sad, for I’m sure Ada 
is a loving little girl. There has been very little 
change in her life and now to have the one 
whom you two call the Sparkling Lady in her 
home most of the time and arranging things as 
only Sibyl Smith-Calvin with all her money 
could arrange them, keeps her from realizing 
what it means.” 

Betty’s mother spoke with understand- 
ing. 

Ada’s pride in the black silk-robed figure, 
lying so grandly and so quietly in the strangely 
clean front room with red and white roses in a 
great bank behind her, soon turned to a grief 
that would not be comforted when she began 
to realize that never again would her mother 
in the old gray calico dress be pottering about 
the house doing the homely tasks which must 


ADA FINDS A NEW HOME 


123 


be done for herself and little daughter. Then 
Ada did break down and cry as though she 
would never stop crying. 

“ I think Ada had better come home with 
Betty,” suggested Mrs. Barker the day of the 
funeral when she and Mrs. Smith-Calvin and 
Ada and Betty were returning together in a 
carriage from the cemetery. “ It will take her 
mind off this until arrangements can be made. 
There isn’t a relative on either side that I have 
ever heard of.” 

“ None that anybody knows about,” an- 
swered Mrs. Smith-Calvin. “ I inquired at 
the last and Mrs. Brunke said she had no kith 
or kin. She settled down in that old house 
when Ada was a baby and that’s about all that 
is known of her.” 

“ I suppose there’s nothing but an orphan- 
age for her,” whispered Mrs. Barker. 

“ No, Mary, it’s not going to be an orphan- 


124 


BETTY BARKER 


age,” replied the Sparkling Lady. “ It’s go- 
ing to be my home.” 

She sparkled very little that day, Betty no- 
ticed. There were delicate shadows outlined 
beneath her beautiful violet eyes and there was 
a softened sweetness about her that made Betty 
love her more than ever. 

“ It won’t be necessary to take Ada home 
with you unless you are very anxious to,” she 
went on. “ I’ve talked it all over with Robert. 
He is willing, although of course he smiles at 
me for it. But I’ve been planning to take Ada 
right on home with me to-day. From now on 

she’s our little girl ” 

“But, Sibyl Smith-Calvin! ” cried Mrs. 

Barker. “ Ada ” 

“ I know all that you could tell me and per- 
haps a little more since I’ve spent most of my 
time in the little shanty for the last few days,” 
interrupted the Sparkling Lady. “ But Rob- 


ADA FINDS A NEW HOME 125 

ert and I have a beautiful home without chil- 
dren. Then here is a child left all alone in the 
world and thrown right under my protection. 
Is there anything else to do? ” 

“ Will Ada be your very own child and will 
you be her ma? ” asked Betty with wide brown 
eyes fixed upon the Sparkling Lady’s pretty 
face. 

“ Yes, dear — her mother,” replied Mrs. 
Smith-Calvin. 

“ Then Ada’ll be richer than I am, won’t she, 
Mother? ” asked Betty. 

“ We’re not rich, Betty,” replied her mother. 
“ We’re merely comfortable.” 

“ Then she’ll be more merely comfortable, 
won’t she? ” asked Betty. 

“ She’ll have all that we can give her to 
make her happy and to help her to grow 
into the girl we want her to be,” replied Mrs. 
Smith-Calvin. “But she could not have a 


126 


BETTY BARKER 


home with more love in it than you have, Betty, 
dear, and that is what counts more than any- 
thing else in the world.” 

“ My! Won’t she be glad, though! ” sighed 
Betty. 

But the little tear-stained Ada, in the beau- 
tiful white dress and ribbons which Mrs. 
Smith-Calvin had dressed her in, did not act 
glad. She sobbed quietly on and on as though 
she cared not one bit about being the Spark- 
ling Lady’s child, but wanted only the tired, 
stooped little mother in her gray calico dress. 


CHAPTER XV 

BETTY MAKES A VISIT 

S CHOOL without Ada seemed a lonely 
place to Betty. 

“ Do you ’spect Ada’s homesick for 
me, too? ” she asked her grandfather one day. 
She had stopped in at his shop on her way 
home from school and was leaning her head 
listlessly against his blue overall knee. 

He pushed aside his work and lifted her to 
his lap. 

“ Bless me! I didn’t have an idea you were 
missing the little tyke like that!” exclaimed 
Grandpa. “ I thought you’d never know a 
lonely minute after you had your dog Cus- 
tard.” 

“ What is a tyke, Grandpa? ” asked Betty. 
127 


128 


BETTY BARKER 


Then, without waiting for him to answer, she 
went on, “ I do just love Custard, Grandpa, 
but I can’t take him to school with me and it’s 
then I’m lonesome for Ada, ’specially when 
recess comes.” 

“ No, you couldn’t very well take Custard 
to school or the children might be singing, 

“ Betty had a homely pup 
Whose coat was a dark yellow, 

And everywhere that Betty went 
She took the little fellow !” 

“ Custard isn’t homely! ” cried Betty. 

“She took that pup to school one day, 

Which was against the rule, 

He made the children laugh and play, 

So they turned him out of school ! ’ ’ 

teased Grandpa. 

“ Would they sing verses at me if I took 
Custard to school? ” asked Betty with interest. 

“ Well, it might not turn out that way, so 
you’d better not try it,” said Grandpa. “ And 


BETTY MAKES A VISIT 


129 


we’ll have to talk to Mother about this Ada 
business.” 

At this moment Mrs. Barker came into 
the shop, carrying an open letter in her 
hand. 

“ I’ve a letter here from Sibyl Smith-Calvin, 
Father,” she said. “ It seems that not all of 
the fine things she’s been doing for Ada can 
make her forget the little old house, her mother 
and Betty. She cries for all three of them. 
Sibyl writes that she thinks perhaps if Betty 
could come there for a week of the vacation 
that begins on Monday, it might be easier for 
Ada to adjust herself to her new surround- 
ings.” 

“ Would she have to go alone? ” asked 
Grandpa. 

“ I could not leave home now,” replied Mrs. 
Barker. “ Aunt Martha’s had the house on 
her hands for so long that I want her to have a 


130 


BETTY BARKER 


rest and so she’s going away for a couple of 
weeks. Yes, she’d have to go alone.” 

“ You’ve not forgotten Betty’s visit all by 
herself to Aunt Sue, have you? It’s farther 
to the Smith-Calvins and they wouldn’t even be 
relatives. Of course, there’s the fact that 
Betty’s been pining for Ada to offset that.” 

“Betty has?” exclaimed Mrs. Barker, sit- 
ting down on a saw-horse. “ She’s never said 
one word about it to me. But if she’s longing 
to see Ada it seems to me that settles the mat- 
ter. Queer though the friendship between 
those two children has always seemed, it is evi- 
dently genuine. Probably Betty won’t get 
homesick with Ada there. Yes, Father, I think 
we’d better let her go.” 

“I ’spect Ada’ll be awful proud,” said Betty, 
as she sat beside her grandfather in the train 
with her little suit-case full of only her best 
clothes in the rack above. Mrs. Smith-Calvin 


BETTY MAKES A VISIT 131 

had said she would come after Ada in the car, 
but Grandpa had had business in the city and 
he preferred to take Betty in. 

“ I ’spect she won’t be any such thing,” an- 
swered Grandpa laughing. “ I ’spect she’ll be 
so glad to see her dear friend Betty Barker 
that she’ll forget everything else.” 

The Sparkling Lady, very sparkling indeed 
in a soft blue silk dress which made her eyes 
look brighter and her cheeks pinker, was at the 
depot in her big car when Grandpa’s and 
Betty’s train came in. Beside her sat a little 
girl in a hand-embroidered green linen dress, 
with white silk stockings and white kid slippers. 
She had white silk gloves on her hands and she 
carried a little green parasol embroidered like 
her dress. Her reddish hair was bobbed in the 
very latest style and topped off with an im- 
mense bow of white ribbon. 

“ Is that Ada? ” whispered Betty to 


132 


BETTY BARKER 


Grandpa, who had to look twice before he was 
sure that this little girl was the gingham-clad, 
none-too-clean little Ada he had known. 

“ That’s Ada,” he answered, for the turned- 
up nose and the freckles and the greenish-blue 
eyes were those of Betty’s old friend. 

But she looked so very different from the 
school friend who had followed her about so 
admiringly that Betty could not act as though 
she were Ada and so she said, very stiffly as 
she would have spoken to a perfectly new little 
girl whom she had never seen before, “ How 
do you do ! ” 

But Ada saw in the small dark-haired, 
brown-eyed girl with the white organdie dress, 
red silk stockings, and red ribbons, the very 
same Betty Barker who had always been her 
staunch friend even when other children had 
laughed at her and been unkind to her. 

“ Oh, Betty, ain’t it just grand for you to 


) 


BETTY MAKES A VISIT 133 

come visiting me at the Sparkling Lady’s? ” 
she cried. 

That made Betty see that, after all, it was 
just Ada. And she answered, as in the other 
days, “ Hello, Ada! It’s grand as grand! ” 

“ You’re a darling to come, Betty, dear,” 
said the Sparkling Lady. “ Now don’t you go 
and get homesick because Ada needs you for 
the whole week.” 

“ Then I’ll stay, anyhow, no matter how 
homesick I get ’count of Ada needs me,” said 
Betty, snuggling down beside Ada in the big 
car. 

She kept her word, though more than once 
the same kind of a lump that had come into her 
throat at Aunt Sue’s came again, and the tears 
had to be winked back many times. 


CHAPTER XVI 

A FAIRY GRANTS THREE WISHES 

B UT in spite of the lump in her throat 
that had to be swallowed more than once 
and the tears that had to be winked 
back every now and then, it was a glorious 
week for Betty. 

There were so many new and wonderful 
things to do in Ada’s beautiful home that one 
could forget about Grandpa and Mother and 
Custard except after one went to bed. Even 
then there wasn’t much time for lumps in the 
throat or tears in the eyes when right beside 
you there was another little girl sobbing for a 
mother whom she could not go home to at the 

end of the week. By the time Betty got 

134 


THREE WISHES 


135 


through comforting Ada both little girls were 
usually asleep. 

One person, however, understood just how 
brave Betty was about her visit for such a long 
time all alone away from home. Although 
Betty had not cried before folks and had said 
not a word about it to anybody, this person 
knew every time Betty had a struggle to fight 
down her homesickness. 

This person was the Sparkling Lady. 

“ I want to do something for the child before 
she goes back,” said the Sparkling Lady to her 
big dark husband. “ Something that she’ll re- 
member. It was Betty Barker who led me to 
see how wrong it was to speak of a child as 
impossible and it was she who set me to under- 
standing hearts. If it hadn’t been for her Ada 
wouldn’t be in our home to-day — oh, you may 
laugh now, but wait until you see what I can 
make of even Ada ! ” 


136 


BETTY BARKER 


“ Darling, you can make anything out of 
anybody!” laughed the big man tenderly. 
“ Look what you’ve done with me and with 
yourself in the last few weeks since you’ve gone 
into this heart-understanding business. As for 
doing something for Betty, go the limit and 
I’ll back you in whatever you decide upon.” 

The result of this talk made Betty quite sure 
that every fairy story she had ever heard could 
very well be true, because in none of them did 
anything so wonderful happen as that which 
happened to her. 

“ To-day we’re going to take a trip in the 
big car, children,” said the Sparkling Lady on 
the morning of the last day of Betty’s visit. 
“ To-morrow Betty has to go home, so we shall 
try to make this the very happiest of all her 
days here. We’ll take our lunch and make a 
day of it.” 

“ A picnic! ” cried Betty with dancing eyes. 


THREE WISHES 


137 


“ My, ain’t that just grand!” exclaimed 
Ada. 

“ Say, 4 Isn’t that delightful or pleasant,’ 
Ada, dear,” corrected the Sparkling Lady 
gently, while the big man laughed his hearty 
laugh. 

“ Isn’t that ’lightful or pleasant,” repeated 
Ada obediently. 

The big man laughed more heartily. 

The Sparkling Lady only smiled and said 
nothing more. She knew that she must go 
slowly with Ada just now. 

Of course a picnic in itself is about as de- 
lightful as anything can be. Betty had always 
thought so and Ada’s dream of delight was a 
picnic with plenty to eat. But, after all, this 
picnic dwindled down to something so very 
small beside the very big thing that happened 
before they had their lunch — and isn’t that the 
picnic? — that Betty thought very little of it. 


138 


BETTY BARKER 


She was altogether too happy to do more than 
nibble on a small sandwich. 

After riding for a long, long distance under 
big green trees and along side of fields starred 
with yellow flowers and streaked here and 
there with purple or red, Mr. Smith-Calvin 
turned the big cream-colored car into a drive- 
way that made Betty sure they were going to 
a place like Aunt Sue’s, for it surely looked like 
a farm. 

And so it was a farm, but not the same kind 
as Uncle Bob’s and Aunt Sue’s. 

This was a pony farm! 

Imagine what fun it must be to raise little 
ponies, and nothing but little ponies, instead of 
cows and pigs and sheep and such ordinary 
things ! 

There is no use in trying to repeat what 
Betty and Ada said when they saw not one 
pony, but ponies and ponies and ponies. 


THREE WISHES 


139 


Wherever they looked there were ponies of 
every color and size and age. There were even 
little pony colts and they seemed almost too 
good to be true — as though they had stepped 
out of a toy-shop and begun to run about. 

“ That Betty child is surely going out of her 
senses ! ” exclaimed the big man as he watched 
Betty dance from one pony to another, shriek- 
ing with delight. 

“ No, that’s her way,” replied the Sparkling 
Lady. “ She’s crazy over pets. That’s the 
chief reason why I decided on this. I hardly 
dare tell her that she and Ada are each to choose 
one of the ponies for their very own. Look at 
even our stiff little Ada. She’s really capering 
about after something the fashion of Betty. 
But I do wish she were as graceful as 
Betty!” 

“ See what time and your help will do in that 
respect,” advised Mr. Smith-Calvin. “ I’ll tell 


140 


BETTY BARKER 


the children now because we must be moving 
on if we are to do all that you have planned for 
to-day.” 

“ You tell them? Indeed not, Robert! I 
want to myself! ” cried the Sparkling Lady. 

“ Then you shall,” answered the big man, 
smiling down into her violet eyes. 

“ Betty, if you could have one for your very 
own which pony would you choose? ” asked the 
Sparkling Lady. 

“ We’ve choosed already,” answered Betty. 
“Ada and me always does choose whenever we 
like anything, just pertending we can have it, 
you know.” 

She put her arm around a little brown pony 
that was nosing at her hand for sugar. 

“ This is the one I choosed,” she said. 

“ And what if this time the pretending 
turned out real and you could have that pony 
for your own? ” asked the Sparkling Lady. 





“Fairy, fairy, i wish for this pony.” — Page 1^1 




















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THREE WISHES 


141 


“ That’d be like wishes a fairy gives 
you — making ’em come true, wouldn’t it, 
Ada? ” 

“ M-mm, and they generally gives three,” 
said Ada. 

“ All right, my dears, I’ll be the fairy and 
you shall have your three wishes,” said the 
Sparkling Lady. “ Betty, you may have the 
first wish because you’re our guest. Then 
Ada.” 

“ Fairy, fairy, I wish for this pony! ” cried 
Betty, bowing low before the beautiful fairy 
and then throwing her arms around the neck 
of the little brown pony. 

“ Fairy, fairy, I want this one! ” said Ada. 

“ Your first wish is granted, my children. 
The ponies are yours. Now for the other two 
wishes. I suppose, being the fairy who is to 
grant your wishes, I should not even hint what 
they might be. But if I had a pony then I’d 


142 


BETTY BARKER 


like something so that I could drive him 
about.” 

“ A cart and a harness ! ” cried Betty. 

“ Sure! A cart and harness! ” echoed Ada. 

“ A cart’ll be my second wish and a harness 
my third, fairy,” said Betty. 

“ Me, too! ” cried Ada. 

“ Your wishes are granted, my dears,” said 
the Sparkling Lady. “Are the ones they have 
chosen all right? ” she asked, turning to the big 
man. 

He had been examining the ponies while 
the second and third wishes were being 
granted. 

“ They couldn’t have chosen better,” he re- 
plied. “ Now we’ll start for the carriage-shop 
and the harness-maker. Perhaps we’d better 
eat our lunch in the car so as to save time.” 

“ My, but that was the loveliest game I ever 
did play!” sighed Betty as they rolled away 


THREE WISHES 


143 


from the pony farm in the big cream-colored 
car. 

“ I never played nothin’ so grand neither,” 
agreed Ada. 

“ Darlings, don’t you understand yet that it 
was more than just a game? ” asked the Spark- 
ling Lady, who was unpacking the lunch. 
“ The fairy really granted your wishes. 
Betty’s pony will be sent to her house — per- 
haps it will be there when she arrives to-mor- 
row. And Ada’s will be sent to our place. 
Here’s a chicken sandwich and a jelly sand- 
wich for you.” 

“ Oh! oh!” cried Betty, springing up and 
down for joy. 

Then she sank down in the soft cushions, si- 
lent but with shining eyes. For once there was 
nothing to say. Her heart was too full for 
words. The sandwiches she held untasted in 
her hand. She could only sit still and think 


144 


BETTY BARKER 


about the little brown pony and the cart and 
harness that were to be her very own. 

“ Ain’t it grand, Betty? ” said Ada. 

“ It’s grand as grand ! ” sighed Betty hap- 
pily. 






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